


As If The World Wasn't Ending

by DragonThistle



Category: Trigun
Genre: Bromance???? I guess????, Drug Use, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, a fic where Wolfwood doesn't die
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-12
Updated: 2018-02-08
Packaged: 2018-02-17 03:16:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 40,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2294771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DragonThistle/pseuds/DragonThistle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Trigun AU. Plants are power sources, not people. There are radical groups attempting to change this way of thinking. Meanwhile, Vash the Stampede tries his best to outrun his checkered past and still keep everyone alive. But it's not easy when he's being hunted for being a free thinking Plant, the most destructive radical group on the planet is hell bent on dragging him into their cause, and his best friend is a mercenary for hire-priest. Things used to be simpler.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. An Uninvited (but not entirely unexpected) Guest

 ------

_"Certain flaws are necessary for the whole. It would seem strange if old friends lacked certain quirks." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe_

\------ 

It was pouring rain outside. 

 Not the nice, cooling spring rain but the hot, muggy summer rain that made you sweat even as you were soaked with the buckets dumped on you from above. The air was stifling and humid, sticking to the inside of your lungs as you breathed.

Nicholas Wolfwood shook his head, scattering droplets onto the already dampened rug. Then, for good measure, he shook the rest of himself, shedding more water off of his dark suit. This task done, he straightened up, plucked his heavy bag off the floor, and strode across the lobby towards the elevators. He nodded a hello to Amelia at the front desk who gave him her usual half-frown and flick of her fingers to pass as a wave. Then he ducked into the elevator and pressed the button for the third floor.

 As soon as he opened the door to his condo, he knew he should have just stayed outside in the rain.

 There was a single muddy boot print just inside the door on the wooden floor of the entrance hall where someone had stepped before doubling back and wiping said boots on the welcome mat. The air smelled vaguely of musty fabric and the coopery sting of wet metal.

 Wolfwood frowned, dropped his bag by the door, and traipsed through the sitting room to the bathroom. The door was ajar and the light was on, it was the only place his (unwanted) guest could be. He nudged the door open with his foot, leaning against the threshold and digging his packet of cigarettes out of his inner pocket,

 "I didn't give you a key so you could barge in here whenever you wanted." He grunted, popping a cancer stick into his mouth and digging around for his lighter.

 "Then why'd you give me a key at all?" His guest shot back, pushing a sopping mess of blond hair out of his face and giving Wolfwood a friendly smile, "It was pouring rain outside and I was in the neighborhood. You didn't want me sleeping on a bench in the park or something, did you?"

 "One day," Wolfwood said slowly as he finally procured his lighter and flicked it to life, "I'm going to move out and not tell you where I went and you'll come waltzing in here to find something horrific. Like a fat man masturbating or something." He took a long drag from his cigarette and exhaled, blowing a cloud of smoke into the bathroom, "And then you'll be traumatized for life and never come near me again."

 "Aw, now that's not very nice," The blond man whined, rubbing at his hair with a damp towel, "And after everything I do for you…"

 "Vash, the day you do something for me will be the day December stops being the wettest shit hole on the planet." Wolfwood pushed away from the door and strode back into his condo proper, flicking on the sitting room light as he went, "And I don't have any donuts!"

 "That's okay, I brought some!" Vash called back cheerily, "They might be a little damp though…"

 Wolfwood rolled his eyes as he trailed into his bedroom, kicking the door shut so he wouldn't have to listen to anything else Vash cared to elaborate on. Technically speaking, Vash wasn't supposed to be at Wolfwood's place; Wolfwood's lease didn't allow for unpaid people staying in the condo. But technically speaking, Wolfwood didn't give a shit.

 Vash was a…to say _friend_ might have been pushing it a bit. But it was the closest word to describing their haphazard and often times destructive relationship. Vash had nowhere else to go and Wolfwood, well…Wolfwood and the norms of modern society had always butted heads. So if he could stick it to the man by letting Vash the Stampede stay in his guest bedroom for a month then more power to him.

 When he left his bedroom in a dry shirt and slacks, he found Vash on the couch in the sitting room. The blond man was all legs and elbows, ridiculously long of limb and so thin he looked like he'd snap in half in a strong wind. He was spread out across the couch like he'd been tossed there, arms sprawled across the back, legs sticking out underneath the ring-stained coffee table, head tilted back and face towards the ceiling.

 "Hey, I'm gonna make coffee," Wolfwood snuffed out his dwindling smoke in the ashtray on the stand by his favorite chair, "You want some?"

 "Huh? Oh, yeah, sure." Vash raised his head long enough to give Wolfwood an empty smile, "Coffee sounds great."

 The dark haired man sighed and made his way into the kitchen. It'd be the instant stuff, he didn't feel like whipping up a whole pot just then. A few minutes in the microwave and Wolfwood made his way back into the sitting room, passing one of the steaming mugs to Vash before taking a seat in the arm chair.

 Vash frowned into the mug, "I don't like it black…"

 "Deal with it, Needle Noggin." Wolfwood replied, "I don't have any cream or sugar in here." That was a lie, he was just too damn tired to go back into the kitchen to get it.

 A theatrical sigh from Vash but the blond man took a drink anyway. They sat in a companionable silence, not looking at one another. There was a steady _drip drip drip_ from the bathroom where Vash had presumably slung his favorite coat over the shower rod to dry. Sitting on the couch in a tatty old sweater and jeans with holes in the knees, he looked more like a homeless bum than ever, especially with his hair hanging in his face and a bit of scruff clinging to his jawline. The barest hint of a frown tugged at Wolfwood's features when he picked out the healing cut on Vash's forehead. It looked like it had been a deep one.

 "What're you doing here, Vash?" Wolfwood broke the silence, "I thought you were going to be in the South until the rainy season passed."

 "Oh, you know…" Vash mumbled evasively, apparently very interested in the blank holoscreen hanging on the wall across from the couch, "Got kinda lonely and stuff and thought I'd drop by and visit. And stuff."

 "Did you relapse?"

 "No!" Vash said sharply. And then his shoulders hunched up to his ears and he pulled his feet onto the couch, somehow managing to curl all six foot eight of his lanky body onto a single cushion with his face nearly in his knees, "…but I wanted to."

 Wolfwood waited, taking a slow drink of his coffee. It had that extra-bitter taste of instant that stung the back of his throat but it seeped warmth into his limbs all the same. When it didn't look like Vash was going to elaborate, he pushed a bit,

 "What happened?"

 Vash made a small noise in the back of his throat and then let out a heavy sigh, "It was a transport caravan moving Plants from a Greenhouse in New Georgia. I might have accidentally…gotten in their way."

 A snort, "You do that all the time, what's the big deal?"

 "They were barely past Seedlings, Wolfwood." Vash's voice was rough and he cleared his throat, hiding his face in his knees, "Couldn't have been a month old--came up to my knees at best--and they were being sent out to run Facilities." He curled up into an even tighter ball and his voice was so soft it was almost lost, "'S not right…usin' kids…"

 Wolfwood closed his eyes and bit his lip hard to try and quell his own anger. True, he had been raised in a society where Plants were power sources, not people. They had no rights, no voices, there was nothing human about them except their appearance.

 But then he'd met Vash the Stampede and everything had changed.

 "Did you get all the kids out?" Wolfwood asked, his voice still as tight as the knot of anger in his stomach.

 "Most of them, yeah." Vash sighed and let his head loll back onto the couch, his expression contorted into something pained and desperate, "Some of them I couldn't get to in time. The ones I did get out…I took them to a sanctuary. I…I dunno, Wolfwood, am I helping at all by doing this? Or am I just making things harder for people?"

 By people he meant Plants and humans.

 "You're helping, Needle Noggin." Wolfwood assured him, "You're helping more than those Gung-Ho Guns, I promise you that."

 Vash visibly flinched and turned away from Wolfwood and the man mentally berated himself. He didn't know the connection but Vash went out of his way to avoid anything to do with the Guns. There were rumors he'd used to run with the gang.

 Silence fell between them again, thicker and heavier than before. Awkward tension. Wolfwood shifted uneasily in his seat. And then, unable to take the quiet and the dismissive sight of the back of Vash's head, he blurted,"I still have some popcorn left. We can watch some movies on the holoscreen if you want."

 Vash instantly turned around with a brilliant smile and rocketed upright, nearly dousing himself with coffee as he did so, "Can we watch The Avengers?"

 Wolfwood suppressed a sigh. He should have seen that coming,

 "Sure, Needle Noggin. We can watch The Avengers."

 Vash made a noise that was a half a step down from a girlish squeal of delight. Wolfwood heaved himself to his feet and made his way into the kitchen to pop the popcorn.

 He was glad to see the smile back on Vash's face.

 Even if it was still as empty as ever.

 -o-o-o-o-

  **To: Meryl Strife, Millie Thompson  
** **From: The Bernardelli Tracking Asso. Assignment Office  
** **Today, 2:06pm  
** **Attachments: Case File - JULY**

 Greetings Meryl and Millie,

 We apologize for the late notice in assignment. You have been given new orders handed down from the Main Office. The orders are as follows:

The Bernardelli Tracking Associates known as MERYL STRIFE [Class A Tagger and Disaster Investigator] and MILLIE THOMPSON [Class B Tagger and Report Associate] are hereby ordered to track, locate, and tag the fugitive known as VASH THE STAMPEDE.

 Both Taggers are to be given full access to the Tracking Assignment Company Funds and may request any additional gear they require outside their usual equipment with properly filed paperwork. Both Taggers are to be given full access Thomas Express Travel Passes.

 DO NOT under any circumstances attempt to capture the fugitive known as VASH THE STAMPEDE on your own. DO NOT under any circumstances overly endanger your lives or the lives of any involved bystanders. DO NOT under any circumstances become involved with street gangs, drug cartels, or the group known as THE GUNG-HO GUNS.

 For further information regarding your target please refer to the attached documents.

 The Bernardelli Tracking Association thanks you both for your time and effort. Any damages rendered to persons or personal affects will be compensated at the return of your assignment. Please sign all necessary insurance documents and waivers before your departure.

 With Well Regards,  
The Bernardelli Tracking Association Main Office

 - - -

**Contents of Attached File JULY:**

Regarding the wanted fugitive known as Vash the Stampede [aka the Humanoid Typhoon] and the destruction of Third City July  
On Plantdate 7/21/0104 at 1 in the pm [approx.], Third City July suffered off the scale damages and was deemed uninhabitable by the Bureau of Better Living. It has since been classified as a Dead Zone and access is strictly prohibited.

Structural damages were so numerous that no buildings were left standing. All that remains in the area are piles of rubble. No bodies were found or recovered from the site.  
All witness accounts verify a blond haired man at the scene of the destruction.

VASH THE STAMPEDE [THE HUMANOID TYPHOON]

There are no birth records of Vash the Stampede. Indeed, it is as if the man does not exist as there are no records of him at all.  
His estimated age is to be about 24.

Vash the Stampede is suspected in countless cases of WANTON DESTRUCTION OF PROPERTY, is considered capable of G-GRADE WEAPONS DAMAGES, and is believed to associate with the group known as the GUNG-HO GUNS.

He is classified as a LOCALIZED DISASTER and as such is not susceptible to government bounties.

EVACUATION ORDERS WILL BE PUT INTO AFFECT IN ANY AREA WHERE VASH THE STAMPEDE HAS BEEN SIGHTED.

HE IS ARMED AND EXTREMELY DANGEROUS.

UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES SHOULD HE BE APPROACHED WITHOUT PROPER CAUTION. 

-o-o-o-o-

Meryl Strife folded up the printouts and and tucked them into her bag after reading them for what felt like the hundredth time.

It didn't make the words any easier to take in.

She wasn't surprised about getting the difficult jobs. She was, after all, one of the top Taggers at the BTA and had more successful missions under her belt than most. Any stray Plant she was sent out to find was always tagged and, in a matter of minutes, bagged by the Hunters who would home in on the tracking signal.

But _Vash the Stampede_.

It was both a little bit scary…and a little bit exhilarating. To be handed such a high stakes mission meant the company had a lot of faith in her and her partner Millie.

Meryl was hoping for some vacation time after this.

"Meryl?"

The short, dark haired woman turned and looked up at her partner. And up a little bit more because Millie was a giant of a woman, "What is it, Millie?"

"Well," Millie was looking thoughtfully at the ceiling, her brow furrowed, "It's just I thought that we only went after Plants…"

"Vash the Stampede _is_ a Plant." Meryl replied, "Apparently it's been kept out of the public that he is one so as to not instigate mass panic. According to the encoded files the government sent us, he was born and raised a stray Plant and has been in our society for years. And apparently he's not the only one, given the way the files were written." She shook her head, straightening her back and slapping her open palms onto her lap, "But that's not our concern. Our primary target is the man--Plant known as Vash the Stampede."

"But we don't even have a picture of him." Millie pointed out.

"True. But we do have a description. And that's more than enough." Meryl smirked, the same look she got whenever they were closing in a stray Plant, "He's very tall--at least six feet--with spiky blond hair and a bright red coat. He's supposed to be very quick on his feet and most of the sightings have been around donut shops. The last sighting was near December so that's where we'll head first."

"Good thing I packed an umbrella!" Millie said with far more cheerfulness than chasing after a localized disaster warranted.


	2. Manhunt in December

\------

_"Tag: the stupidest game ever created by man. Gives kids an excuse to hit each other." - Anonymous_

\------

Wolfwood woke up to an empty condo.

Mostly empty.

There was evidence that his houseguest had been there and probably intended to come back. A dented pillow and a pile of blankets were on his couch, a half pot of coffee was left on the burner, a box of donuts (three of them gone) had the lid propped open, and a large, battered travel pack was on the floor beside the couch.

Vash had evidently gone out for some reason or another but intended to come back eventually.

Wolfwood glanced out the window. It was overcast and grey but it hadn't started raining. Yet. Well, it wasn't his problem, he wasn't Vash's babysitter.

Except that he kind of was, in a way. Whenever Vash was in December, Wolfwood wondered what he was up to, felt accountable for the blond haired idiot's actions whatever they may be. Vash was in _his_ city and it was _his_ responsibility to keep him from causing too much destruction.

But only after he'd had his morning cup of coffee.

-o-o-o-o-

Vash the Stampede was, for once in his long life, not getting into trouble.

He was sprawled on a worn bench in Luminoso Park, the small plot of trees and grass in the middle of December, slowly picking apart his third donut and popping the small pieces into his mouth. He liked parks. Areas with a lot of grass or trees or plant life in general were few and far between, either drowned out by the rainstorms that tended to flood the North or dried up into husks by the intense heat of the South. So Vash took every opportunity he had to appreciate the little things. Like parks. And donuts.

Especially donuts.

He swept a hand absently up his spiked hair, as if checking the humidity hadn't ruined it. Which was a bit of an odd move because despite the stickiness in the air, he was wearing a hooded sweater, thick jeans, metal strapped boots, and a long, thick, faded red leather duster with just one too many buckles. The weather seemed to have no affect on the free Plant. Besides, Vash didn't own a lot and the coat was his favorite thing.

Finishing off his donut, the man levered himself off the bench and brushed the donut crumbs off his front. He tilted his head back, looking at the branches of the tree stretching overhead and smiled,

"Hey sister, how're you holding up…?"

He took a deep breath of muggy, soon-to-rain air and his smile widened.

The smile didn't last long.

"Meryl! Look! It's--"

"I see him! Vash the Stampede! Stay where you are and put your hands in the air!"

Vash spun around, coat flaring around him, and found two women pointing guns at him. One was short, barely over five foot, with dark hair and a hard, determined gaze. The other was almost as tall as Vash himself with long brown hair and a friendly face despite the all-business frown she wore.

Vash slowly raised his arms, licking his lips and shifting his weight to get ready to bolt.

"I said freeze!" Shouted the shorter one, "Keep your hands where we can see them! My partner and I are going to approach you slowly. We don't wish to harm you but my partner has a stun gun ready to fire so we can subdue you if need be." Vash's sea green eyes flickered to the tall one who straightened her aim at him. He looked back to the shorter one, "I will approach and place my tagging gun against your neck. Any sign of resistance will be met with a shot from the stun gun. You will be tagged and collected by the Hunters. Is that understood?"

Vash hesitated, unsure if he was allowed to speak and if that counted as moving. Then, slowly,

"Yyyyeeeaaahhhh, I understand. Except, uh, see there's one little problem with your…demands."

The shorter one scowled, her derringer-like gun aimed right between his eyes. He really didn't want a tag beacon right between his eyes.

"I've got work to do. Sorry! Can't stay! Maybe later! Bye!"

And he bolted.

There was a muffled bang and the tell-tale crackle of a stun shot whizzing by him. Vash ducked instinctively and spun on his heel to change direction on the fly. He could hear the women shouting behind him and he groaned as he darted between a couple of trees.

Taggers! They were better than Hunters who would have just shot first and never asked questions but they were still damn annoying. It wasn't the first time taggers had chased after Vash. He'd always managed to shake them in the past even if they did manage to lodge a tag beacon on him somewhere. But that didn't mean he wanted to deal with having to _dig one out of his skin_ again.

Another bang, another shot flying by though he didn't know if it was a stun shot or a tag beacon and he wasn't sticking around to find out. Vash skidded around another tree, almost sliding on the grass as he went, and burst out of the park and into the street. A car screeched its breaks and blared its horn as he dashed across the road but he paid it no mind and darted into an alley.

Having wandered the streets of December many a time, Vash was more than familiar with its paths. He was hoping to use this to his advantage and lose the two taggers long enough to make it back to Wolfwood's place. There was another screech from the road and a lot of swearing. Another shot was fired and Vash let out a yelp as a chunk of brick exploded by his ear.

"Why are people always chasing me!?" He whined, ducking behind a dumpster as another shot bounced down the alley, "I never do anything and they're always shooting at me and trying to hurt me! It's so unffaiiiirrrrr!"

Vash feinted right as he left the alley and spun away to the left instead, coat swirling around him like a ragged pair of leather wings. He raced along the back alley, the rusted rear doors of shops and empty sockets of street lamps watching him go by, boots churning up loose gravel and dirt. Two blocks from the building, just two blocks.

He lengthened his stride.

-o-o-o-o-

"Wow, he sure moves fast, huh Meryl!"

"Millie, don't _compliment_ him! He's a stray Plant, not a circus act!" Meryl scowled as they ran down the alley their target had disappeared down. Though she had to admit that Vash was giving them a run for their money. She had never seen a Plant move so quickly and so nimbly. Of course those ridiculously long legs probably helped a lot too.

The two Taggers burst into the back street just in time to see the hem of a faded leather coat vanish around a corner on the far right end.

"Damn it, there he goes! There he goes!" Meryl gestured with her gun and took off running again.

"Meryl, wait up!"

The pair turned the corner and saw the trail of scattered pedestrians that marked Vash the Stampede's haphazard path down the sidewalk. None of the citizens were knocked over or pushed into the street as most chases tended to end up but rather they were simply standing, looking after the run away man with curiosity and wonderment. Meryl and Millie plowed through them, shouting at them to get out of the way. Their target glanced over his shoulder, let out a frightened squeal, and skidded into an alley.

"Freeze!" Meryl shouted uselessly, gesturing with her gun, "I said stay where you are! You can't get away, Plant, there's nowhere for you to run to! Just give up and turn yourself in!"

There was a loud clang from the alley up ahead and when Meryl and Millie turned down it, there was no sign of the stray Plant.

"Huh…? Where'd he go?" Millie looked wildly around the alley, her gun lowering to her side, "Did he teleport?"

"Millie! Don't be ridiculous!"

There was a squeal of rusty metal from above them and both Taggers looked up to see their target frozen mid-step on the fire escape. They stared at one another for a tense minute and then Meryl shouted and swung her gun up. Vash let out a shriek and scrambled up the fire escape, all jutting knees and elbows, nearly tripping over himself as he went.

"After him!" Meryl screamed and made a wild grab for the ladder, hauling herself up, Millie hot on her heels,

"You're not getting away, Vash the Stampede! I won't let you out of my sight!"

-o-o-o-o-

Wolfwood was (with no small amount of pleasure) helping himself to Vash's donuts. Because no matter what that pointy-haired idiot said, they would always be _Vash's_ donuts. And no doubt when he found two missing he'd whine and cry and pitch a hell of a fit.

But Wolfwood was more than willing to tolerate that for the simple pleasure of eating Vash the Stampede's donuts.

He wandered back into his sitting room, making a beeline for his favorite chair and the remote for the holoscreen. He was going to spend this time he had to himself to catch up on a few shows.

There was a bang as the window to the fire escape was thrown open and none other than Vash the Stampede tumbled into his condo. He looked harassed and half-panicked, his eyes wide. He launched himself away from the window and dove over the couch, tangling himself in his giant duster as he did so.

"Vash…?"

"They're after me!" Vash shrieked, trying to crawl under the couch.

"Who--" Wolfwood began but then the who was crawling through his window too in the form of two women, both wielding Tagger issued guns, "Aw, shit, Needle Noggin, what kinda hell did you bring home with you this time!?"

"Freeze! Hands in the air!" The shorter woman shouted, darting around the end of the couch and aiming her gun at Vash who instantly stopped moving and stared at her in a pleading panic, "You're under arrest for multiple accounts of property damage, evading arrest, suspicion of--"

"SANCTUARY!"

Everyone stopped moving and stared down at the long form of Vash the Stampede sprawled on the floor with his hands over his head. His wide, green eyes darted between the three occupants of the the room and then he swallowed thickly and repeated in a small voice,

"…sanctuary?"

"Wha--what?" The shorter Tagger blinked in surprise, confusion clear across her features, "Sanctu--what on earth!?"

"Isn't that where a fugitive is immune to arrests by the law of the church because the church is a sacred place?" The tall Tagger asked helpfully, her gun dropping to her side as she frowned up at the ceiling in thought.

" _What_!?" The short one shrieked and everyone else winced, "B-but--no! No way! First of all, this isn't a church, it's some poor bystander's apartment! And secondly," She rounded on Vash again, jamming the gun in his face, and he flinched back against the couch, "This is a _stray Plant_! Human laws don't apply to him!"

The crushed expression on Vash's face was enough to stir up the ashes of Wolfwood's anger and he took a step forward. In the same motion, he drew his hand out of his jacket and aimed a pistol at the woman,

"Actually, ma'am, I think you'll find you're wrong on both accounts."

 


	3. Exposition Sandwiches

\------

_"A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort." - Anonymous_

\------

"Excuse me?" The short Tagger was staring at Wolfwood in disbelief, "Do you know who you're aiming at!? I am Meryl Strife, Class A Tagger, an employee of The Bernardelli Tacking Association! My partner, Millie Thompson, and I have been charged with tracking down the stray Plant known as Vash the Stampede and that's exactly what we've done!"

"We're sorry for barging into your place like this," The tall one, presumably Millie, added from the other side of the couch, "But we're just trying to capture a dangerous fugitive, mister."

Vash glanced at Wolfwood, at the gun in his hand, and then started edging away from Meryl's tagging gun that was still aimed at his head.

"Hey! Hey, don't even think about it!" Meryl shouted, jabbing the gun in Vash's face again, "Stop moving! You're under arrest! Move again and I'll shoot! Hey!"

There was a bang and a tracking beacon lodged into the arm of Wolfwood's chair where Vash's shoulder had been seconds before. Vash had moved so quickly he'd dodged the shot and was now crouched behind Wolfwood's legs, peering through them at the Tagger girls.

"What the--!?" Meryl gaped at him, "How the hell--!?"

"Can't we all just…get along?" Vash whimpered, fingers plucking at Wolfwood's dark slacks, "I did claim sanctuary, you know. By rights you can't shoot at me or arrest me or anything!"

"I just said, that doesn't apply to you!" Meryl snapped, trying to aim her gun at Vash.

"And I said," Wolfwood said coldly, "That you're wrong." Both women turned their attention to the dark haired man who still his gun out and aimed at Meryl, "Anyone can all sanctuary in this place because I say so. And I'm a priest so what I say goes. And as for the matter of humanity…" Wolfwood's expression hardened and his finger tightened on the trigger,

"Who of us has any right to say what makes a human being?"

"Hey, now, don't kill them, Wolfwood! They were just doing their jobs!" Vash cried from the floor.

"They were going to _tag you_ and _bag you_ , Needle Noggin!" Wolfwood barked, his gun unwavering even as he looked down to yell at his roommate (because really, at this point who was he kidding).

"Excuse me!" Meryl shouted as Vash began to whine about sparing people's lives again, "If you continue to shelter our target I'm going to have to place you under arrest for aiding and abetting a known fugitive!"

"Can't we all just sit down and talk about this…?" Millie asked weakly, at a loss for what to do.

"You don't even know who you're pointing your weapon at!" Wolfwood snarled and there was such venom in his voice that it brought Meryl up short.

"Wolfwood," The priest look over his shoulder to see Vash climbing to his feet, "Don't."

"Vash--" Wolfwood began but the blond haired Plant shook his head.

"Don't move!" Meryl was aiming at Vash again but her voice had lost some of its conviction.

Vash's attention was instantly on her, all sharp eyes and such a hard expression that was unlike the ridiculous faces he'd been giving them all day,

"I'm sorry," He spoke slowly, his voice low, completely different from the shrieking, child-like man he'd been before, "I'm sorry but I can't go with you. Not yet. There's still something I have to take care of. So please," He hand brushed aside his red coat and his fingers curled lightly around the grip of a gun at his hip,

"Please, for the love of god, don't shoot that gun."

Meryl and Millie could only stare.

It wasn't a threat. Even with his hand on his weapon, even with Wolfwood still aiming at them, it clearly wasn't a threat. It was plead, a desperate beg. Not the usual crying, not the usual screaming, nothing like the other Plants they had tracked down and tagged.

This man…who was Vash the Stampede?

-o-o-o-o-

Plants.

Some people called it Lost Technology.

But that was implying that it had been discovered from some forgotten civilization.

As far as history knew, humankind had always been using Plants to function as long as there had been the technology to do so.

They looked human but they wielded unnatural abilities. The energy they generated within themselves was tremendous and whole eco systems could be created from it. As it was, humanity used them as power sources. Plants were plugged into massive facilities that were used to siphon and redirect the energy of the Plant, using it to power cities, homes, lives, everything and anything in the human world. Humans relied heavily on Plants in order to exist.

And there were some who thought this was wrong. There were humans who insisted that Plants be treated as equals, as people, instead of batteries. Radicals, idealists, yelling to a world that had lived too long without listening to pay attention.

"Plants are people!" Their small voices cried, lost in the masses, "They are sentient! They speak and they feel and they think! Doesn't that make them human!?"

"No." Said the loud voice of the government and that was the end of that.

Still, there were break-ins. "Theft of government property" they called it when Plants were freed from the Power Facilities or from the breeding grounds of the Greenhouses.

That's where the Taggers and Hunters came in.

The Taggers would hunt down the stray Plants, hit them with a homing beacon, and then the Hunters would come and collect them.

There had been…incidents.

Groups who were more vicious in their attempts to get Plants the rights they felt they deserved.

Groups like the Gung-Ho Guns, notorious for the level of destruction, mayhem, and death that brought with them. They were vicious, bloodthirsty, and brutal. They didn't just raid a Power Facility or Greenhouse.

They destroyed it.

The Gung-Ho Guns had given every other rebellious group a bad name. Rallies to free Plants had slowly dwindled.

And yet there was one name that kept appearing every so often. One name that stood out even above the Gung-Ho Guns. One name that eyewitnesses said with much hesitance and fear when they spoke of how no one had been hurt or killed.

The legend that truly began with Lost July.

Tales of a man in a bright red coat whose very footsteps spelled disaster.

Vash the Stampede, the Humanoid Typhoon, the Ace Gunman.

The man who had destroyed an entire city in a single day.

The very man who was now curled into a corner of the couch with a half-eaten sandwich and watching Meryl and Millie like a hawk.

The two Taggers were perched on chairs from Wolfwood's kitchen table, their guns stowed away but looking no less wary. And Vash was looking no less wary of them, even as he took a comically large bite of his sandwich.

Wolfwood was hunched in his armchair, harassed and grumpy, scowling at the lot of them.

This was not how he'd wanted to spend his day.

"So let me get this straight," Meryl said tensely, "That man," She pointed at Wolfwood who scowled at her, "Is some kind of priest. Which means you can claim sanctuary in his condo. Which means we can't do anything out right aggressive towards you while you're here."

"Basically, yeah." Vash said with more cheerfulness than was warranted. He licked some crumbs off the leathery material of the glove on his left hand. There were stranger brass pieces inlaid in the glove, along the inside of the fingers, dotted across the knuckles, and bands of it stretching over the back of his hand to vanish into the sleeve of his coat. The glove on his right hand was fingerless and lacked the brass bits.

"This is ridiculous!" Meryl blustered, "I can't believe we're just sitting here while our target eats a sandwich right in front of us! This is so stupid!"

"But Meryl," Millie cut in, "He claimed sanctuary and not even we can break that code. We'll just have to wait until he leaves to catch him."

Vash choked on his sandwich and looked a little panicked, "What!? Wait, you're not actually going to sit here and wait for me to leave, are you!?"

"Don't be an idiot." Meryl shot back, "We have to respect property lines and this is Mister Wolfwood's home. We've intruded long enough. We'll be leaving shortly to gather our things from the hotel--"

Vash visibly relaxed and even Wolfwood seemed to let out a small sigh of relief.

"--and move into the nearest empty condo on this floor."

"WHAT!?" Both men's voices reached impressively high pitches in their dismay and shock.

Meryl ignored them both as she rose to her feet, dusting off her light gray slacks as if brushing off the entire situation, "Come on, Millie. We've got work to do." She shot a hard glare at Vash who had lettuce spilling down his front and didn't seem to notice as he was too busy gaping at her,

"And you, Mister Vash, don't even think about running. Because we _will_ find you."

"It was so nice to meet you, Mister Priest, Mister Stampede!" Millie said cheerfully as she stood up as well, "Chasing you was a lot of fun! I hope we get to do that again soon!"

Wolfwood followed them both to the door, fiddling with his lapel so he could easily reach his gun again if they tried anything. Neither of them did unless you counted Meryl turning her nose up at them as she stomped down the hall and Millie waving goodbye as she followed. Wolfwood watched them get in the elevator, watched the numbers tick down to the first floor, and then ducked back into his condo and shut the door. Then he locked it. And threw the deadbolt for good measure.

Vash was still on the couch when he went back into the condo proper. The sandwich and bits of lettuce were gone.

"Okay, they've left. So get going."

"Huh?" Vash looked up distractedly from where he'd been picking at his fingernails.

"Go!" Wolfwood waved his arms at Vash who stared at him uncomprehendingly, "Take your stuff and run! If you take off now, you can probably get a head start and easily ditch them when they start chasing you!"

Vash chewed on his lip and looked away.

Wolfwood frowned, "What the hell are you doing? Usually you'd be out the window and long gone before I got back from the door…"

Vash made a noncommittal noise and didn't meet Wolfwood's eye.

A thick heavy silence hung between them, the priest staring hard at the Plant on his couch and the Plant pretending he wasn't there.

Wolfwood thought about what Vash had told him yesterday, about the interrupted Seedling transport. He remembered the thickness, the tension, the heaviness in Vash's voice and the way his shoulders had slumped and his eyes had seemed old and tired.

He sighed and ran a hand through his dark hair, glancing away into a corner,

"Do you wanna go to a meeting?"

A sea-green glance in his direction that quickly darted away and then a breathless mutter,

"Yeah."

-o-o-o-o-

The explanation to the Finance Office had been "the target is in the area but more time is needed to find out where and none of the local hotels allow for stays longer than four days". Which, while not necessarily true, did allow Meryl and Millie to repack their half unpacked bags and move into the condo at the end of the hall on the third floor.

There had been no sign of the priest or the stray Plant while they'd been moving in and sorting out the paperwork but Meryl didn't doubt for a minute that they were still behind the closed door of condo number 304.

Millie, in her typical fashion, didn't seem at all bothered by the fact that they were living two doors down from the creature that had destroyed Third City July all by himself, the notorious, gunslinging menace that had raided Plant Transport caravans and freed valuable property, the devil in the red coat. She took it all in stride, putting their things away and commenting on how this was probably the biggest room they had ever stayed in and, oh wow, it even came with a holoscreen already installed, isn't that great Meryl?

Yes, it was great. But what would be really great would be tagging and bagging that ridiculous stray Plant. She could still hardly believe that _he_ was Vash the Stampede. Honestly, he was a complete goofball. How could he possibly be their target?

Meryl paused in the act of packing socks into a drawer in her bedroom. How did she know that the Plant they'd chased down was Vash? How did she even know he was a Plant? The only thing they had to go off of for finding the notorious gunslinger was a description and rumors. Granted, the man they'd chased fit those descriptions perfectly. But that by no means proved him guilty of anything.

The Tagger chewed on her lip a moment and then swept out of her bedroom. She marched past the kitchen where Millie was busily stocking a cupboard with pudding cups and into the hallway. She intended to ask the man to his face who he really was, get some answers.

But she stopped dead in her tracks just outside the door because trundling down the hall was the very man she'd thought was still in the other condo. His spiked hair was crammed underneath a peeling baseball and there was a happy smile on his face, the plastic stick of a lollipop sticking out of the corner of his mouth. His red coat was nowhere in sight and his arms were laden with boxes of sweets. Behind him trailed a disgruntled looking Wolfwood, hands shoved in his pockets and an unlit cigarette clenched between his teeth.

"Heeyyy! It's the Tagger girls! So you did get the condo after all!" Vash had spotted Meryl standing in the hall and picked up the pace, his long legs covering the remaining distance between them in almost no time at all, "Here! Have a house warming gift!" And he thrust a box of Milk Duds into Meryl's hands, "Oh! And these are for your partner!" A bag of Sugar Stars joined the Milk Duds, "Have a good day!" And he bounded back to Wolfwood who scowled and muttered something at him. Vash laughed in reply and followed the priest into the condo.

Meryl shook herself and tripped backwards into her own condo, still holding the sweets.

There was no way…

There was no possible way a man like that could be Vash the Stampede.

 


	4. Fist Fight Cafe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Double update today in honor of Vash Day yesterday! If you missed it go back and read Chapter 3!

\------

_"Challenges are what make life interesting; overcoming them is what makes life meaningful." - Joshua J. Marince_

\------

There was an unusual amount of sunlight for being the middle of the rainy season in December and everyone was taking advantage of the good weather. Jackets were shrugged off, umbrellas folded, windows were open, and sunglasses flashed on the sidewalks of the city that were bustling with people getting their few good hours of nice weather in before the clouds hit again.

Vash the Stampede was no exception.

However, instead of pushing his way through the crowds on the streets, the Plant had nestled himself on the fire escape outside of Wolfwood's condo. The priest was out and about on some sort of clerical duty and Vash had the place to himself. So he'd taken advantage of it by sunning himself as best he could on the metal platform. It was a bit cramped for someone his size and it was a bit odd to be sunning in his coat, jeans, and boots but he was wearing a pair of yellow tinted sunglasses and a serene smile so he had to be enjoying himself. 

The sun filtering down through the fire escape of the floors above him traced a lace work of shadows across his long frame. His back was braced against the wall of the building, his boots against the opposite rail, knees scrunched into the air like a couple of mountains, his arms folded across his lap and his chin tucked into his chest. He was perfectly still and could have been sleeping as far as the rest of the world was concerned.

But Vash wasn't asleep, not quite. He was in the warm, hazy area between dozing and wakefulness, aware of his general surroundings but lost in his own thoughts. Behind his tinted sunglasses, his eyes were half-lidded and staring listlessly at the blue sky through the metal grating. Or rather, staring beyond it. His gaze was beyond it; beyond the blue, beyond the sky, a desperate sadness super imposed over the perfect arch of cloudless space overhead.

A click in the alley below him made him twitch and he had just started to raise his head to look when there was the bang and a shot ricocheted off the fire escape,

"I've got you this time, Vash the Stampede!"

Vash let out a groan and began to launch himself to his feet when another shot forced him to duck and slam against the rail of the fire escape. That was going to leave a mark. In the alley below, Meryl reloaded and took aim again. Vash hissed between his teeth and bolted for the stairs. Another shot drew him up short and his boot caught the grill work of the escape, slipping between the bars of the rail and sending him tripping to the floor with a loud bang of reverberating metal.

"Crap, crap, crap, crap!" Vash struggled to sit up and twist his foot free of the bars but all he got for his effort was a wrenching pain in his leg that made him cry out.

"Got you!" Meryl cried triumphantly and Vash could see her running up the fire escape to the third floor, gun at the ready. He struggled and yelped, kicking at the rail with his other foot and trying to get away. It rattled and clanged, flakes of rust old metal peeling from it, but it didn't give.

"Damn it!" Vash kicked out once more with all his strength, twisting his foot as he did so, and yanked hard. A bar was dislodged and bent outwards and Vash hauled himself back, dragging himself to his feet just as Meryl stormed onto the third floor landing of the fire escape.

"Freeze!"

"Sorry! Not today!" Vash ducked her shot with incredible speed and vaulted over the side of the fire escape. He dropped, hanging on by one hand, and then let go, dropping down to the next landing and jarring his shoulder as he caught himself. Meryl leaned over the railing above, gaping at him. He waved his free hand with a grin and let go, dropping the rest of the way to the alley floor, rolling to absorb the impact. He picked himself up quickly, ignoring Meryl's shrieks for her partner, and took off down the street, leaving the shadows of the alley for the bright sunny sidewalks.

He ducked, dodged, and weaved amongst the crowd, sticking close to the tighter groups of people. He knew the Tagger girls wouldn't risk trying to get a shot at him with all these civilians around, he just needed to shake them off, find a place to hide out for a while, and then sneak back to the condo when enough time had passed. Meryl was stubborn but even she wasn't willing to stake out the streets all day looking for him.

Vash felt a slight pang of guilt as he slowed his pace, trying to blend in with a quick trot rather than a full out run. Really the sensible thing would have been to split town a week ago like Wolfwood had suggested when the girls showed up. But Vash needed someone to lean on despite his wanderings and Wolfwood knew it. So Vash stayed in December and risked capture with every hour.

But, hey, he was getting some good exercise out of it.

-o-o-o-o-

Two figures watched as a ridiculously tall man in red coat with spiky blonde hair moved with a crowd across the street at the a crosswalk. As soon as the crowd had cleared the street, the tall man broke away and strolled away at a quick pace towards the Western edge of town.

The two figures watched him go from under the umbrella of a cafe.

One of them turned to the other.

"Was that--?" He asked in a deep, rumbling voice.

"Yeah, I think it was." Said the other, all nasal whine and sneer.

"Should we--?"

"Yeah, we definitely should."

They stood up and left the cafe, following the telltale sweeping red coat of Vash the Stampede down the sidewalk.

-o-o-o-o-

The little hairs on the back of Vash's neck prickled and he knew without having to look that he was being followed. He'd been hunted and chased enough over the years to know what that was like.

And it wasn't Meryl and Millie because, well, those two were all bluster and loudness.

No, he suspected that whoever was following him now meant business. They were either Hunters from Bernardelli or they were freelance bounty hunters. There weren't a lot of bounty hunters around anymore, mostly because the Bernardelli Tracking Associate made them obsolete and bounties were rarely issued anymore. But there were still a handful around and they went after whatever they could find, mercenaries for hire and assassin's on rich people's payroll.

Vash turned a corner and glanced out of the corner of his eye. His stomach dropped.

Definitely bounty hunters.

He was about to change direct to try and shake them when Millie of all people plowed around a corner, panting and waving her stun gun,

"Stop it right there, buster! You're under arrest!"

"Aw, come on!" Vash howled, and took off running. A quick glance over his shoulder and--yep, the bounty hunters were hot on his tail. And so were Meryl and Millie, "Why me!? Why do these things always happen to _me_!?"

He put on an extra burst of speed. There was no point trying to blend in now and besides that, he was so close to the edge of town that there less people, smaller shops, and less places to hide. Vash turned a corner at random and found himself on a stretch of open grass. Cursing, he lunged for the nearest building, threw the door open, and dove inside.

A tiny cafe with a handful of patrons. Vash plastered himself against the door, chest heaving as he sucked in the stale, air conditioned air, glancing around for a way out.

"Uh, h-hi, sorry to barge in on you," He panted as the stunned waitress, "Do you happen to have a back door or something? Maybe a secret bunker in the back I can hide in?"

-o-o-o-o-

"Where'd he go!?" Meryl shouted as she and Millie skidded into the open, "He can't have gone far there's hardly anything around here!"

"Meryl!" Mille pointed towards a nearby cafe and at first Merly thought maybe that her partner was saying Vash had gone in there. But then she realized Millie wasn't pointing at the cafe.

"Oh my gosh, is that…are those the Nebraska Hunters!?"

Two men were standing in front of the tiny cafe building. One was tiny, lean, looking half starved with his dark skin stretched over his bony frame. The other was a monster of a man, a veritable bulldozer of muscle. He was thick and wide, almost as tall as Vash, and he had an enormous gun aimed at the cafe doors. It was less like a gun and more like a boulder on a stick.

"Oh no, this is bad…!" Meryl breathed, "The Nebraska's are notorious for the level of destruction they cause when they corner their target! There are too many civilians here! It's much too dangerous!"

"Yeah, and just imagine what will happen if they make The Humanoid Typhoon mad!"

"Millie, we don't know that that's actually him! He fits the description but he's just too ridiculous to really be Vash the Stampede."

"Then why do you keep shooting at him?"

"Now is not the time to talk about this!" Meryl said loudly, "We need to resolve this situation quickly before someone gets hurt! It's already attracting a crowd and that's more people who are in danger."

Before either of them could take action, however, the bigger Nebraska leveled his giant gun and fired it at the cafe. The weapon was apparently some kind of mechanized morning star because the spiked boulder (too big to simply be called a ball) was launched from the rest of the gun and flew through the air to slam into the tiny cafe building. It didn't so much as punch a hole in it as _completely decimate it_.

The skinny Nebraska laughed, showing a mostly toothless mouth to match his mostly bald head. The giant beside him took a step back to brace himself and, with a clinking whir, reeled the head of his morning star gun back in. The cable--thick as a child's arm--snapped taunt and with a great heave of stone and lumber, the weapon came shooting back to snap into place on the gun. The gun itself was welded and screwed into the big Nebraska's shoulder and even with his preparation, the impact of the head returning drove him back a half step.

"Oh my god, Meryl, he--he destroyed that place!" Millie had her hands over her mouth in horror, not unlike the rest of the crowd that had gathered around to see what the commotion was about, "All those people--he just--oh my god!"

Meryl was stunned. She knew the Nebraskas were violent (maybe not to the level of the Gung-Ho Guns) but she had never imagined that they would be like this. Her training was screaming at her to tag them, to let the Hunters chase them down and take them into custody, but she found she could not lift her hand to retrieve her gun.

This was not normal.

This was not right.

Normal people didn't cause destruction like this. Normal people didn't destroy lives senselessly.

A crumbling of brick and beams from the rubble of the cafe jarred her to her senses. Something was moving. Some _one_ was moving. Someone in there was still alive!

"I didn't think that would do you in," Sneered skinny Nebraska, "You're notoriously hard to kill…Vash the Stampede!"

"It's him! It's really him! It has to be!" Meryl's hands were shaking and she took a step forward, trying to get a good look through the haze of dust in the air, "The Nebraskas wouldn't hunt a worthless idiot! No one else could survive an attack like that! It has to be him!"

A heavy chunk of debris was leveled away, falling to the ground with a thud. A figure rose through the haze of dirt and dust, an impossibly tall figure, thin and defiant, a long coat snapping in the air behind them.

A glint of gold.

An angry frown.

A flare of red.

A man with spiky blond hair and a long, red leather duster turned to face the Nebraska hunters, his glare evident even through his yellow-tinted sunglasses. His boots scraped through the rubble as he straightened, hoisting the unconscious form of a waitress in his arms.

It was the very man Meryl had chased from the park a week ago. The very man that was staying with the priest. The man she had doubted ever being the Humanoid Typhoon.

It was Vash the Stampede.

"It's him…" Meryl shook her head in disbelief as Vash stepped nimbly over the ruins of the cafe and laid the waitress on the ground out of danger, "It's really him. That man…that's Vash the Stampede…!"

"He's saving the people from the cafe," Millie said, "Meryl, he's trying to move them out of danger!"

And he was. The devil in the red coat was heaving the rubble aside and dragging people out from under the pieces. That he could move the chunks of brick and wood alone was testament to his strength and ability as a Plant.

"What do you think you're doing, Humanoid Typhoon?" Sneered the skinny Nebraska, tapping a long pistol against his thigh, "Are you trying to _save_ those people? Ha, what a joke! The stories about you are true, I can't believe this bullshit. Even when it puts your own life at risk, you don't let anyone die, what a bunch of crap. Hit him again, Gofsef! Show him how pointless his efforts are!"

The big Nebraska braced himself and fired again. The crowd on the fringes of the property all shouted in panic. Vash grabbed the back of a patron's shirt, a waiter already tucked safely under his arm, and dove out of the way, throwing the two civilians in front of him as he went. The impact of the morning star head smashing into the ground behind him sent him tumbling. He rolled with the shockwave and came to a halt crouched in front of the people he'd managed to rescue, his gun suddenly in his hand.

No one had even seen him draw.

No one had seen him fire, either.

But the big Nebraska brute was suddenly on his back in the dirt, howling in pain and clutching at the ruined morning star gun mounted on his shoulder, the cable slack and useless.

"Did…did you hear him shoot?" Asked someone in the crowd and there were several murmurs of no, no, there had been no gun shot, they hadn't heard a thing.

Meryl was in shock, eyes wide as she watched Vash straighten up, gun swinging down to his side. It was suddenly making sense to her why the man was called The Humanoid Typhoon.

"Wow, Meryl, that was amazing! Did you see that!? Did you see what he did!? BecauseI sure didn't!"

Millie's excited exclamations shook Meryl from her shocked stupor and she grabbed her partner's sleeve,

"Come on! We've got to make sure those civilians are all right!"

They hurried towards the rubble, the sound of sirens wailing drawing closer and closer. Of course the police arrived _after_ it was over. The crowd was shouting for someone to call an ambulance and there were already cell phones out and flashing. Meryl wondered briefly if anyone had gotten footage of Vash and if it could be confiscated. If the man was pulling stunts like this all the time then how in the world had no one ever gotten a picture of it before?

"This isn't over!" Shrieked the skinny old Nebraska, raising his long pistol and aiming it at Vash, "How dare you! I'll get you Va--"

There were two loud cracks of gunshots and the man keeled over on the spot, a red welt swelling on his neck from a tagging beacon and the crackling electric ozone of a stun shot in his arm. Millie let out a hoot of triumph and Meryl smirked, clicking back her gun in preparation to fire again as she turned to face Vash.

But the man in the red coat was gone, with barely a footprint to say he'd been there at all.


	5. Dogs and Angels - Part One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Updates are going to be a bit slow from now on. It's the middle of my last semester and it makes it difficult to write when I've got homework to do. Please be patient with me. And enjoy the first part of this two part flashback!

\------

_"No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted." - Aesop_

\-----

Cleaning up after the Nebraska hunter incident took some time.

There was a lot of talking with the police and handing over the Nebraskas (after they'd dislodged the tracking beacon) and dealing with crowd control. It was several hours before Meryl and Millie were able to escape the mayhem and destruction caused by the wild hunt and by the time they made it back to the condo, they were very tired and, in Meryl's case, very cranky.

There was some shouting coming from condo 304; it sounded as though The Humanoid Typhoon was getting lectured by the priest. A very, very unhappy priest. Meryl smirked at the small form of revenge and happily locked the door to their condo behind them.

Now she knew for sure, the man with the red leather duster, spiky hair, and stupid smile was Vash the Stampede.

A part of her had been desperately hoping it was anyone but him.

-o-o-o-o-

Wolfwood woke up before Vash and that in of itself was strange. Vash was early to rise and late to bed. But when Wolfwood trailed out of his bedroom and into the sitting room, he found the lights still off, the curtains still drawn, and a lump of too long limbs curled up on his couch. 

Wolfwood stared at the sleeping Plant for a minute and then glanced at the softly glowing blue-green of the ticking wall clock.

7 am.

Vash must have been more worn out than he let on after yesterday.

There was a knock at the door and Wolfwood frowned. He headed for the front hall, paused when he realized he was still only wearing his boxers and then darted back into his bedroom. He reemerged tying a dark blue bathrobe on and hurried towards the door as the knock came again. A quick look through the peephole and then he drew back he deadbolt and opened the door, patting his dark hair down to try and get it to lay flat,

"Hey, Millie, right? What're you doing here?"

The tall Tagger woman was in loose pants and a hooded sweater, her messy hair tied back in such a way that said she had probably just gotten up too,

"Sorry for bothering you so early, Mister Priest," Millie said a little too loudly for Wolfwood's taste, "But Meryl dropped our groceries when she started chasing after Mister Vash yesterday and we don't have any coffee. She's kind of…mad right now so I was wondering if we could borrow some of yours just for this morning."

"Uh, y-yeah. Yeah, yeah, sure. Come on in." Wolfwood held the door open for her, closing and locking it again once she was inside, "Keep your voice down though, all right, Vash is still asleep."

Millie nodded, following him down the front hall to the sitting room. Vash had shifted his sleeping position during the time Wolfwood had been at the door. He was now stretched out on his side, one hand curled beneath his chin, the other shoved underneath his lumpy pillow. His legs were still bent at the knees (he couldn't fit on the couch fully stretched out) but shifting had pulled the blanket off his broad shoulders and tugged at the collar of his frayed turtle neck.

"He looks so peaceful sleeping like that." Millie said in low voice, barely above a whisper, "You wouldn't think he was a typhoon looking at him now. But why is he sleeping on the couch? Don't you have another bedroom like Meryl and me?"

"He has to earn the privilege of sleeping on the bed." Wolfwood muttered, traipsing into the kitchen with a yawn. The wall between the kitchen and the sitting room was really more of a ledge that dropped down into a counter so Wolfwood could still keep an eye on things in the other room.

He turned his back to them to reach into the cupboard above the coffee maker and get his tub of coffee grounds. When he turned around again, he saw Millie leaning over Vash and had a momentary flash of panic that she was going to hurt him, take him, tag him and bag him. But she was simply pulling his blanket back up over his shoulders, tucking him in gently with a warm smile on her face. Vash let out a happy sigh, the most relaxed sound Wolfwood had ever heard him make, and murmured something on his breath that neither of them caught.

"Do you usually tuck humanoid disasters into bed or do you make an except for the blond stupid ones?" Wolfwood asked, tugging at a small tupperware container. It caught on the others in the cabinet and sent several of them cascading onto the countertop with a clatter of plastic. Wolfwood looked up sharply, worried he'd waken Vash.

But the Plant on the couch simply made a muffled sound of discontent and curled tighter under the blanket, murmuring to himself.

Millie glanced at Wolfwood and then looked back at Vash, "Well, Mister Priest, I come from a big family and we always took care of each other and they taught me that you should try and show a little bit of kindness to everyone because even a little bit of something nice makes the world a better place. I'm the youngest of five, plus my five older cousins that lived with us, so I was the baby in the house. Everyone else always took care of me so," She shrugged, smiling at the sleeping Vash, "I try and take care of others the way they took care of me, you know?"

Wolfwood smiled a little, scooping out coffee grounds and dropping them into the small container, "You sound like him when you talk like that," He jerked his head at Vash, "He's all about this love and peace nonsense, spews it like a leaky faucet and then whines and cries and throws a tantrum when someone gets hurt. It's annoying as hell and sometimes I just want to punch him because the world doesn't work like that." He slammed the lid back onto the tub of coffee a little harder than necessary and shoved it back into the cupboard.

Millie watched him for a moment as if trying to figure him out. She looked at Vash and then back at Wolfwood and asked softly,

"Why are you friends with Vash the Stampede, Mister Priest?"

Wolfwood hesitated in the act of snapping the lid onto the tupperware container. Then he shrugged, pushing it on the rest of the way, "It's complicated." He padded out of the kitchen and held the container out to Millie,

"The gist of it is, I helped him out once and now I'm stuck with the idiot. He's like a tumor that just keeps coming back no matter how many times I hack him off. Obnoxious little shit."

Millie giggled as she took the container from him, letting him lead her back to the door, "You say that like you hate him but you're smiling in your eyes while you say it." She ducked back into the hall, waving at him as she headed back to her own room "See you later, Mister Wolfwood. Thanks for the coffee."

Wolfwood snorted and closed the door, shuffling back into his condo to make his coffee and maybe cook up some breakfast. A real breakfast with eggs and bacon and everything.

Millie's words had jostled something inside him and he wanted to steadfastly ignore it. But the memories pressed against his skull and struggle as he might, he couldn't keep them away.

Five years.

Almost five years to the day since he'd met Vash the Stampede…

-[]-[]-[]-[]-

_Almost five years ago…_

Before Wolfwood had settled in December, he'd wandered where he pleased, carrying his word and his gun. He'd corrected wrongs with his gun and gathered coin with his words. Using both, he'd helped pay for an orphanage to be built in the name of his employers for the kids with nowhere to go.

Then came the destruction of Third City July.

It had rocked the world, rattling the confidence of mankind, and etched the name Vash the Stampede into the pages of history.

Of course, the only thing people had to go on were rumors. A man with blond hair and a huge gun and red coat had been there before and after the destruction. Several people said he'd stood in the middle of the ruined city and laughed. People whispered that he was a demon.

Vash the Stampede, the Humanoid Typhoon.

Mankind's first localized disaster.

Wolfwood didn't know what to make of the rumors and soon began to ignore them all together. The frightened mutterings of people without spines.

It was around the time he was thinking about finally settling down somewhere that he found what some people would call destiny. Others might call it karma. Wolfwood called it bullshit and sometimes wished he had never taken his jeep the long way around to see if he could get a glimpse of the ruins of July to sate his own curiosity.

He was still several dozen miles from July's location, a few days after the destruction, when he spotted something off the paved desert street that was neither rock nor plant life. Curiosity caused him to slow down and mercy compelled him to stop all together when he realized that the lumpy brown thing he was looking at was a _person_.

Jeep parked on the tilting side of the road, Wolfwood dashed across the sand and crouched beside the still figure. They were laying facedown in the dirt and nearly half dead (maybe all dead), wrapped in the ragged remains of what might have been some kind of traveling cloak. Wolfwood heaved the man--for it was a man--over so he was on his back to get a better look at his condition.

Bruises, scrapes, dried blood. Hair that might have been blond at some point. Lips chapped and cracked with lack of water. Left arm completely gone, blood stained across the cloak.

"Shit…" Wolfwood breathed, "What the hell happened to you? Where the hell did you come from and what are you doing way out here?"

There was no answer from the man except for a rattling, barely there breath that told Wolfwood the man was still desperately clinging to life. The priest chewed on his lip for a minute, tapping a finger against the phone sitting hot in his pocket. He was also very aware of the weight of the gun in his jacket. Would it be more merciful to put the man out of his misery? He didn't look like he'd last much longer anyway.

But the next thing Wolfwood knew he was driving back down the road towards his rented little apartment in tiny little Inepril. And the half dead man was strapped into the seat beside him. He'd found a traveling bag nearby, probably the last vestiges of the man's belongings. Routing through it had revealed very little.

Except for the gun.

It was a huge piece, too big to really be taken seriously but a scary thing to be waved around, he supposed. If it had been in any kind of working condition. It was busted to crap, pieces missing, scraped, scratched, and dented. Wolfwood didn't know what to make of it but he buried it at the bottom of the bag beneath the old clothes and tucked it beneath the back seat in his jeep. No one needed to know.

He took his rescue to the small clinic, staggering through the door with the tall, half-dead man slung over his shoulder. He'd been swarmed immediately by doctors and nurses who had bustled his catch away and Wolfwood had collapsed into a chair with a groan. He explained to the nurse where he'd found the man and how his infinite depths of mercy had compelled him to rescue the poor soul.

And then, for some reason, he waited.

He had no reason to. His job was done. There was no reason to stick around and make sure the other man was all right.

But Wolfwood couldn't shake the image of that busted gun and that stump of an arm out of his head. So he dozed in the waiting room, got some coffee from the place across the street, and flipped restlessly through the year old magazines filled with plastic smiles and cloying perfume ads.

They shook him awake in the middle of a half-doze and he nearly went for his gun before he remembered where he was. He disguised the motion as scratching at his prominent nose.

"Sorry to disturb you, sir, but the man you brought in, he's in a recovery room. He should be waking up soon. Did you wish to see him?"

"Yeah." Wolfwood said and was on his feet before he'd realized he was getting in too deep with this. But he followed the doctor down the hall whose chemical stench barely covered the smell of blood and then into a room near the back of the building.

"He had no identification on him," The doctor said as Wolfwood approached the prone figure on the hospital bed, hooked up with wires and wrapped in bandages, "We have no idea who he is. We've asked the police to come in since they're he ones who deal with John Doe's but if you have anything to vouch for him…"

"Hm? Oh, no I've never met him before." Wolfwood said honestly, glancing up at the doctor and then frowning down at his rescue, "I just…found him dying out there. Didn't seem right to leave him there."

The doctor nodded in understanding, "Well, the police should be here soon. If he wakes up, please let us know." And he left the room, leaving Wolfwood with the unconscious, nameless, one-armed man.

Wolfwood chewed on his lip, wishing for a cigarette, and then sank into a nearby chair. There was something…something about this rescue that was bothering him and for the life of him he couldn't figure out what it was.

-[]-[]-[]-[]-

The man woke up rather quickly for someone who had been badly injured and left half-dead in the desert. An hour or so after his arrival at the clinic, his fingers twitched on the thick hospital bedsheet, a stuttering, raspy groan came from his throat, and his eyelids fluttered.

Wolfwood, who had been nursing his second cup of rather stale tasting coffee, looked up,

"You alive, mister?"

"Uh…?" Said the man in the hospital bed, turning his head with the slowness of a long sleep to look at Wolfwood with glazed eyes, "Wh…where…?"

"A clinic in Inepril. I found you collapsed out in the desert, nearly dead. Name's Nicholas Wolfwood, by the way. What were you doing out there in the middle of the desert?"

The man glanced away from Wolfwood and closed his eyes again, "I…don't remember…I don't remember…"

He gave the same answer to the police when they came in to talk to him.

Propped up against the headboard of the hospital bed, blond hair hanging in his face, long frame slumped in on itself, he made a very pathetic picture indeed. Wolfwood lingered outside room, pretending he wasn't listening to the questioning going on beyond the partially closed door.

"What's your name, sir?"

"It…I don't know. Don't remember."

"Where are you from?"

"…s-somewhere…a city…? I think. I can't--I can't remember."

"Do you remember anything?"

There was silence and then a soft, broken voice murmured,

"A mountain of rubble."

"July!? Were you in July!? Did you see what happened!? Did you--"

"That's enough." Wolfwood barked, striding into the room. The two police officers and the man on the bed looked up at him, "Give the poor guy some space, he's probably been through a lot and it's obvious he's got some form of amnesia."

One of the officers began to protest, "But if he saw what happened to July--"

"Do you think he'd want to remember it?" Wolfwood snapped, giving the pair his best damning glare, "Look, if he did witness what happened to July, he's probably repressed the memory. There's no point in trying to drag it out of him, it would just hurt him. Leave him alone. If he does remember someday, he'll tell you. How's that sound?"

The two police officers looked at Wolfwood, at each other, at the man in the hospital bed, and then back to Wolfwood,

"How do we find him again once he's left the hospital?"

And before Wolfwood knew what was happening, he'd said,

"He'll be staying with me."

And that was the end of that.

The man--everyone was referring to him as John because they had nothing else to call him--stayed in the hospital for two more days before he was cleared to leave. The doctor's all said he was healing quickly and it was a miracle he had survived the loss of his arm. John smiled that thin, wavering, empty smile of his as if to say "yeah, amazing huh? how's the weather today?"

On the day he was released, Wolfwood showed up in his room with a bag of clothes and a pair of worn out boots. John stared at him and then at the familiar clothes in the bag. Wolfwood gave him a look that said he was lucky the police hadn't found the bag in his jeep.

The short drive back to the apartment was quiet. The mysterious man stared out windows of the jeep, almost in a daze. Wolfwood ignored him for the most part, window cracked despite the desert town heat so he could smoke a much needed cigarette. The arrival at the apartment building was met with equal silence until Wolfwood showed his guest into the apartment and then shut and locked the door behind him. He reached into his jacket and pulled his gun out. Either the other man heard or he'd noticed because he turned around sharply, hand automatically flying to his hip and grasping at air.

"Why'd you lie to the police?" Wolfwood asked. He didn't aim the gun, just let it dangle at his side, finger off the trigger. A threat but a quiet one.

"What?"

"About your name. You lied. I could hear it in your voice. Who are you really?"

The man swallowed and looked away.

"Are you Vash the Stampede?"

Sea-green eyes darted up, hard and sharp and suddenly wary. The man--Vash, Vash the Stampede, in his apartment!--took a step back, gaze darting around for an exit.

"Relax, I'm not going to shoot you. Or turn you in." To prove his point, Wolfwood stowed his gun back in his jacket and brushed past Vash into the tiny kitchen of the apartment, "You want something to eat? I might have some ham slices around here somewhere…"

"Why?" Asked Vash.

"Well because hospital food is gross and--"

"No, I meant why aren't you going to turn me or anything?"

Wolfwood straightened up, turning to look at this helpless, one armed "Humanoid Typhoon" with a serious frown, "Well for one, you're still injured and it just wouldn't sit right with me to turn an injured man over to the authorities. As a man of the cloth, it's my duty to show mercy where others will not. Besides," The priest shrugged,

"I'm curious as to how a wimpy looking thing like you could have possibly destroyed an entire city all by himself."

Vash actually bristled, cheeks turning pink, and stomped away to sulk on the couch.

Wolfwood laughed. This was going to be interesting, to say the least.

 


	6. Dogs and Angels - Part Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have the next couple chapters of this fic done but I have nearly stalled out on the latest. I don't know if I can keep it going as much as I want to. Lemme know if you wanna see how this goes and I'll push myself to finish it, guys!

\-----

_"You are never strong enough that you don't need help." - Cesar Chavez_

\-----

Vash hadn't been lying when he said he didn't remember much of anything. Actually he did remember some things but the memories were vague and disconnected. They joined together slowly over the next few months, clicking into place awkwardly and sometimes harder than Vash could handle.

It was a difficult road to December.

When Wolfwood discovered that Vash was a Plant ("Oh, you saw me lift that car, huh? Haha, well, I am a Plant so…"), he had to sit down and rethink his entire view on the world. When Vash had learned that Wolfwood was a mercenary for hire, he'd given the priest a massive lecture ("Thou shalt not kill! What kind of a church man are you!?"). More than once the pair had gotten dangerously close to throwing punches.

They arrived in December a few months before the beginning of the rainy season. Wolfwood bought a lease on a condo and moved in. He never added Vash onto the lease but the Plant stayed with him anyway.

For a week.

One night when Wolfwood returned from a job, he found the condo empty as though Vash had never been there at all.

He didn't see Vash the Stampede for almost three months. But he heard stories. Rumors. Tales of a man in a red coat who had stopped a bank robbery. Or instigated it. No one seemed to be able to agree what rumor was exactly true. Wolfwood was more inclined to believe that Vash was trying to do good, given what he'd learned about the Plant. But even given what he knew, he had no idea how the man had ended up in the desert miles outside of July or where his left arm and memory had gone. And no matter how he'd asked, Vash would duck, dodge, and squirm away from answering by any means necessary. Eventually, Wolfwood just learned to stop pushing.

Life slowed down without Vash around and Wolfwood fell back into his old life. December was a small city compared to places like Augusta or what July had once been but it was large enough for Wolfwood to lose himself in and that was good enough for him. He disappeared into the backdrop, occasionally slipping away to fulfill his employers wishes, and enjoyed the solitude of his condo.

And then, without any warning, Vash the Stampede stumbled into his life and upended it again.

It was deep into the middle of the rainy season in December, drenching downpours occurred almost daily, threatening to flood the Blue River and a good chunk of the city. Wolfwood was bowed under the weight of an umbrella that was shedding waterfalls. His pants were soaked almost to the knees, the rain water had seeped into his shoes and drenched his socks, and the handles of the plastic bag carrying his groceries was beginning to bite into his skin. But he didn't dare try to trade hands for fear of dropping his umbrella and drenching himself further.

It was with great relief that his building came into view and he flipped his grocery bag onto his wrist to dig into his pocket for his keys when he spotted someone curled under the slim eve by the door. The priest paused, eyes narrowed, and then let out a heavy sigh.

"If you make a mess I'm making you pay for the cleaning." He grunted, holding the door open, "Come on, get up, you know I'm not going to leave you out here."

Vash uncurled himself from the sidewalk and, shedding sheets of water from his ratty old cloak, shuffled into the lobby of the building. Wolfwood sent a thin smile to Amelia who gaped at the dripping Vash in horror at the mess he was creating and then Wolfwood grabbed Vash's arm and dragged him into the elevator and up to the third floor. He shoved the man through the condo and into the bathroom and only when the condo door was safely locked and the curtains drawn did Wolfwood relax.

Marginally.

"What the hell were you doing sitting outside my building in _plain view of everyone_!?" The priest barked, stomping across the bathroom to loom over the Plant curled on edge of the bathtub. His soaked umbrella and bag of groceries lay on the floor forgotten outside the bathroom.

"Din' know where you were…" Came the slurred reply.

Wolfwood scowled, "You moron, you can't just sit around waiting for me! What if a Tagger saw you!? You know they're hunting you now right!" Vash didn't look up, head hung low and hair shadowing his features, "Are you listening to me Needle Noggin!? You almost got us both into trouble!" Wolfwood grabbed a fistful of Vash's cloak, hoisting him up to look him in the eye, "Hey, I'm talking to yo--Vash…?"

The Humanoid Typhoon's usually sharp sea-green eyes were glazed, his features slack, his limbs boneless. He didn't seem to be looking at Wolfwood at all and when the priest gave him a shake, Vash's head lolled on his shoulders and a sloppy grin rippled across his features. A hoarse giggle slipped out of the Plant's mouth and Wolfwood nearly dropped him in disgust.

"You're fucking high." The priest spat, lip curling, "I can't believe you. This is a fucking disgrace." He shoved Vash back down onto the tub and stepped back, shaking his head, "Get yourself cleaned up. I'll set up the spare room for you."

Vash made a high keening noise at him and tilted his head back, eyes closed. Wolfwood clenched his fists, backed out of the bathroom, and slammed the door shut as hard as he could.

Vash the Stampede, the Humanoid Typhoon, the legendary gunslinger and ace gunman, high as a fucking kite and locked in his condo bathroom.

Wolfwood was a little more than half tempted to hand the Plant over to the authorities right then and there.

Instead he stomped into spare room and wrenched open a dresser drawer to get a change of clothes for the idiot Plant in his bathroom.

-[]-[]-[]-[]-

A drugged up Vash was not a fun Vash, Wolfwood discovered.

Oh, he was plenty easy to deal with since he was pretty much a mindless, giggling drone when he was high. But coming down from it was a different story.

Woflwood had cleaned the Plant up, helped him dress ("For god's sake, Vash, how high are you--put your boxers back on, what the fuck!?"), and hung up Vash's clothes on the shower rod to dry.

Vash was giggly but docile in his drugged state, if Wolfwood didn't steer him around then he'd probably just stay in one place, head lost in the psychedelic clouds of his drug haze. Experimentally, Wolfwood ordered him into the spare room and, tripping like a newborn foal, Vash complied. It was a bit more work to get him to lay on the bed and _stay_ there but eventually they got the Humanoid Typhoon's long limbs sorted out and Wolfwood shut him in the room with a heavy sigh. He thought about making coffee but didn't trust Vash with a hot drink so he just sat in the living room in the semi-darkness, going through his packet of cigarettes at lightning speed, trying to figure out what to do with a high Plant.

He hadn't expected to see Vash again, let alone high, and he hadn't been prepared. Vash was muttering and giggling in the room down the hall, Wolfwood could hear him, even if he couldn't make out what he was saying. At one point he started desperately calling for cutting implements which Wolfwood steadfastly ignored. No way he was letting a narcotized Vash the Stampede near his cutlery.

When he started singing, words slurring together and notes dropping like flies, Wolfwood gave up.

He picked up his umbrella, grabbed another pack of cigarettes from the grocery bag, and clambered out the window onto the fire escape. It was a little difficult to light up while holding an umbrella and his carpet around the window was probably going to get damp but to hell with it. He needed some peace and quiet.

The priest sucked in a deep lungful of acrid smoke and it out in a long, slow breath that was battered down by the rain.

So.

Vash the Stampede was a druggie.

Wolfwood had to admit his surprise. For all the Plant preached about love, peace, and life, he apparently had his own dark vices. A lot darker than a huge appetite for donuts.

Well, he supposed, they all had their demons.

Some of them just sat closer to the surface than others.

-[]-[]-[]-[]-

When he climbed back into the condo after three good, long cigarettes, he found it quieter than before. He made his way to the spare bedroom and opened the door slowly.

Vash was curled on his side, back to the door, shivering with gasping sobs. Wolfwood felt any anger at the Plant slowly dribble away and he backed out, closing the door as quietly as he could. He shuffled back into the sitting room just as Vash broke into peals of screaming sobs. Wolfwood winced and sank into his armchair, shoulders hunched.

As much as he wanted to, there was nothing he could to help. Vash was coming down from his high and he was coming down hard. Crashing and burning. He'd just have to ride it out.

But it didn't make it easy.

Almost half an hour of gut wrenching sobs came from the guest room. Wolfwood turned the holoscreen on just to have an excuse ready if any neighbors showed up about the noise. That and he needed something else to listen to.

When it finally quieted down, Wolfwood got to his feet and went into the kitchen. He got a few things together, working in silence, and the went back and sat in his chair and waited. He didn't have to wait too long.

The sound of the door creaking open was like a shameful whimper. There was a hesitation and then the soft padding of bare feet across the carpet. Wolfwood didn't look around as Vash--wearing a wrinkled and tear stained T-shirt and pajama pants--sank onto the couch as far away from Wolfwood as he could get. He looked wrecked, his hair disheveled, deep circles beneath his blood-shot eyes, heavy stubble on his face. He looked thinner too, his board shoulder contrasting sharply with the way his shirt billowed around his sunken chest, his face looking too angular to be healthy. His hands trembled in his lap and he buried them in the loose folds of his shirt.

"Sorry." He whispered hoarsely, voice almost lost in the low volume of the holoscreen.

Wolfwood glanced at him and his gaze was instantly snagged by the scars running up Vash's right arm and puckering at his neck. They seemed to flicker in the light of the holoscreen. The metal pieces of Vash's left arm were scratched and dented, clearly unkept and starting to rust in some places.

Wolfwood tsk'd and Vash flinched. The priest turned back to the holoscreen, "There's a sandwich and a glass of orange juice in the kitchen. Eat up and then we'll talk. And don't think you're slipping out of this one, Needle Noggin. You've got some explaining to do."

Vash complied in silence. He rose to his feet, creaky and swaying, his head down as he crept into the kitchen, retrieved the meal, and then curled into the couch again. Wolfwood watched him out of the corner of his eye, making sure he ate it all. Vash didn't meet his gaze once, never looking up from his plate. When he was done, he nudged the plate and glass onto the coffee table and tried to disappear into the couch cushions.

Wolfwood wouldn't let him.

"You gonna explain yourself or do I have to pry it out of you?" The priest asked, his voice was hard but there was no venom in it. Just disappointment, "Come on, Needle Noggin, you owe me an explanation after the stunt you just pulled."

The Plant was focused entirely on his knees, looking smaller than he ever had. He seemed to be taking the time to gather himself, collecting his sluggish thoughts and putting them in an understandable order. He wove his fingers together, rubber covered metal intertwining with calloused skin, and took a shallow breath.

"It was…almost two years ago now I think. It's…it's a bit blurry. Faded. Stuff happened, things I'm not sure I'm ready to admit to yet." Vash spoke slowly, words forming carefully before being released, "People got hurt. I wasn't able to protect someone I care about. And it was…it was devastating. I lost control. Spiraled. I fell hard on the drugs, leaned on them because I thought they were the _right thing to do_." He closed his eyes, sucked in a shuddering breath, and let it out slowly, "I've been trying ever since to kick the habit but it's hard. When I was younger, I did not understand why people became addicts. Now I do and I wish I didn't. And I'm sorry, Wolfwood, I am sorry I put you in danger and I dragged this into your lap."

His gaze flickered to the priest sitting quietly in the chair and then dropped back to his hands still folded in his lap.

Wolfwood fought the urge to pull a cigarette out. All this time he'd been lighting up around Vash and he had no idea how that might have affected the plant. The priest leaned back in his seat, mulling everything over in his head. There really wasn't much to mull over.

"You didn't really tell me anything at all." Wolfwood pointed out, "But I'm really getting tired of you coming in here looking like someone shot your puppy so I'll let it slide just this once." The priest heaved himself out of his chair and held his hand out to Vash, "Come on, Needle Noggin, let's go."

"G-go…?" Vash muttered, completely taken aback and not a little confused, "Go where? You're not finally turning me in are you!?"

"As if, you're the only entertainment I get around here," Wolfwood snorted, "No, we're going to get that rusty hunk of junk attached to your shoulder cleaned up. Look at that, perfect craftsmanship gone to waste because you couldn't take care of it, tsk, tsk."

Vash looked down at his rusty mechanical arm and chuckled to himself. It sounded a bit strained, not a little bit mad, and his smile was empty. But it was a start. He grabbed Wolfwood's hand and pulled himself to his feet,

"It's still pouring rain outside, though."

"So what. Go put a sweater on and let's go. I've got better things to do than babysit you."

Vash flinched, a wane smile on his face, "Ouch, hey, quit bossing me around, Wolfwood. What are you, my mom?"

"Sometimes I damn well feel like it…"

-o-o-o-o-

It had taken a good three and a half years to clean Vash up.

He'd nearly slipped off the wagon once and if Wolfwood hadn't been around, then things probably would have gone south very quickly. Now, whenever the Humanoid Typhoon was feeling particularly worn down or susceptible to his vices, he fled to Wolfwood's condo for stability and support.

Sometimes there were rough patches and they fought and bickered and Vash had a bad habit of dragging the priest into his radical adventures. But it was familiarity and when they had downtime and Vash was sinking into a bad state of mind, they would go to a meeting somewhere in the city. Sometimes Vash would try to get Wolfwood to quit smoking but it never amounted to anything. The priest would just as soon quit as he would turn in his guns.

When Vash was gone, disappearing often without a word, then life found its routine again and settled back into some form of normalcy. Stories still circulated, tall tales and legends about the man in the red coat whose very footsteps brought destruction and death. But Wolfwood could readily ignore them all. He knew better.

He knew the real Vash, the one still asleep on his couch, was soft hearted and kind, a gentle soul who defended any who could not defend themselves and righted wrongs where he could. He fought harder for others than he did for himself and even if his smile was empty he wore one all the same.

The real Vash the Stampede was what could almost be called…a hero.

 


	7. The Fault of a Good Heart

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well one person left me a comment saying they liked this so I guess that was enough to kick this back into gear. Who am I kidding, I wanted to keep writing this anyway. I just like feedback.  
> So if anyone is still reading this, please leave me a few lines about what you liked or didn't like. Constructive criticism is incredibly helpful. Also, for those of you still reading, THANK YOU! I know I haven't updated in a long time but I want to try and get this finished so THANKS FOR STICKING AROUND! Now on with the chapter!

_"Most of us regard good luck as our right, and bad luck as a betrayal of that right." - William Feather_

\------

Two days after the Nebraska incident and the Tagger girls had kept their distance. Vash didn't mind. In fact, he relished the space. It gave him time to gather himself, time to think. Maybe too much time. He was beginning to remember why he stayed in the South during the rainy season; too much wet and too little sun.

"The bulb in the heat lamp went out." Vash said when Wolfwood walked into the condo.

Wolfwood frowned, already grumpy from the damp and the fact that some old lady had had the gall to stop him on the street and ask him if _he'd_ met Jesus, "Then go get a new one."

"What, why can't you get it?" Vash whined, sitting up on the couch, magazine slipping from his grasp and falling to the floor.

"Because I don't use the heat lamp. You dragged it in here one day so you're going to be responsible for it."

"Aw mmaaannn, I don't wanna go out in the raaaiinnn. It's too wet out there…"

"You're a _Plant_. I thought you _liked_ the rain." Wolfwood grunted, hanging up his coat and kicking his shoes off.

"Not _this_ much rain." Vash flopped back on the couch, throwing his arm dramatically over his face. He looked as if he'd been there all day, empty plates and a half read stack of magazines teetering on the coffee table.

Wolfwood's frown became a scowl as he walked into the sitting room, "What the hell is this, Needle Noggin? Clean up after yourself!"

Vash grunted moodily at him and Wolfwood grabbed his ankle, yanking the Plant halfway off the couch. Vash let out a squawk and flailed, catching himself before he hit the floor and glaring at the priest.

"Don't give me that look," Wolfwood snapped, "You can't keep hiding out in here. You know it, I know it. You're going to start taking root if you don't get out. So get off your ass and go by a lightbulb!"

Vash grumbled under his breath (something that sounded suspiciously like "Plants don't literally take root you uneducated hypocrite") and hauled himself to his feet. He straightened his sweater, hiked up his faded jeans, and stomped past Wolfwood into the hall to get his boots and coat. It wasn't out of contempt but more out of restlessness. Vash the Stampede being contained in a single room for more than two hours was like bottling a hurricane. Eventually it would shatter its cage and explode, taking a good deal of everything else with it. And while it wasn't unusual for Vash to linger in Wolfwood's condo for several months, he usually didn't stay inside for days in a row and he rarely, if ever, showed up during the rainy season. The situation with the Seedlings must have rocked him more than he'd said.

Still, Wolfwood wasn't going to indulge Vash's somewhat self destructive tendency to mope around.

"Here." He tossed his umbrella to Vash who caught it without looking up from where he was buckling his boots, "And don't take too long. You made a ruckus with that Nebraska incident and we don't need anymore attention than that."

Vash mimicked Wolfwood's little speech, screwing up his face and sticking out his tongue as he pulled his hood over his head, "'You made a ruckus with that Nebraska incident', blah, blah, blah, stop getting into trouble Vash. Stop hurting yourself Vash. Stop eating all the donuts Vash. Nyah, nyah, nyah."

"Get out of here before I throw you out the window!" Wolfwood shouted and Vash grinned cheekily at him, sticking out his tongue and then ducking out the door before the priest could throw something at him.

Wolfwood frowned at the closed door and then moved to clean up the mess that had been left in his condo. He shoved the heat lamp that was arched over the couch into a corner and out of the way until Vash came back with the lightbulb and then kicked it for good measure. It earned him a sore toe for his efforts.

Plants might not have _literal_ plants but there was a very, very close relation. Wolfwood suspected, having watched the Humanoid Typhoon for several years, that they could even speak to and understand trees and other plant life. Whatever the case, Plants needed a higher concentration of water, sunlight, and essentials nutrients than a human. They also preferred heat and tended to lag in colder conditions. Which most likely explained a small part of Vash's behavior. And his appetite.

Lord have mercy, could Vash eat. It was almost terrifying to watch. The free Plant could plow through a half dozen box of donuts in less than an hour if he had a mind to. Wolfwood had seen it happened.

Speaking of donuts, the box of a dozen that had been in the kitchen was empty. Well, that had lasted longer than expected. Nearly two weeks. That had to be a record.

-o-o-o-o-

Vash sloshed through the half-flooded sidewalks of December, skirting the deeper puddles and sticking to the edge of the road so he could bolt if necessary. He didn't think anyone would try and chase him in this downpour (really, who in their right mind would even go _out_ in this!?) but better safe than sorry, he supposed. The rain hammered angrily at Wolfwood's dark blue umbrella and Vash tugged the collar of his leather duster up around his neck even more, grabbing a fistful of it to shove his cold nose into. The scent of leather, metal, and gunpowder seeped into his senses and he took a deep breath. Familiar. Safe. Warm.

It might have been conspicuous, but Vash would never trade it in, not for anything.

The coat and the heavy Colt on his hip were the most important things he owned.

He sidled into a ma and pop hardware store, shaking the umbrella out under the eaves before rolling it up to stop it from dripping. Then he turned to survey the shop, senses already dancing on eggshells, ready for danger. 

There were three other people in the shop; the man behind the counter and the two men he was talking to. Vash gave them all a careful, quick once over as he walked over to a shelf displaying lightbulbs. A snatch of conversation caught his ear.

"--sayin' there's a shortage of Plants."

"No way, government would have told us and set up one of those, uh, power restriction things up. Like they did, what, ten years ago? When that Plant virus went around and was knocking off Plants left and right, remember?"

"Yeah, yeah, I remember. An' I'm sayin' it's happen again!"

"Why? 'Cause of some dumb rumors?"

"I heard that Greenhouses were losin' Seedlings! And there's talk off a Black Market for Plants now! They say the Gung-Ho Guns are runnin' it!"

"That's the stupidest thing I ever heard!"

All three men looked up when the bell on the door jangled.

But there was no one there except for the swish of a red coat vanishing out into the rain.

-o-o-o-o-

"Open the door! Open this damn door before I shoot it down!"

"Mister Wolfwood, what are you doing!?" Meryl threw the condo door open to see the priest framed in the hall, anger etched into his face and his fists clenched at his sides.

"Where is he!? What have you done with him!?" Wolfwood snarled, stomping into the condo, forcing Meryl to stumble backwards.

Millie came out of the kitchen, a curious frown on her face, "Mister Priest? Is everything all right?"

"Where's Vash!?" It was a roar, a worried anger, "What have you done with him!? Did you tag him!? Did you _turn him in_!?" Wolfwood grabbed a fistful of Meryl's jacket and shook her, "Where is Vash!!?"

"We don't know! We haven't seen him since the Nebraska incident!" Meryl pushed at Wolfwood's arm, trying to get out of his grip.

"Please let go of Merly, Mister Priest!" Millie lay a hand on Wolfwood's shoulder, a gentle but firm pressure, "It's like she said, we haven't seen Mister Vash for days! Please. Please, let Meryl go…"

Wolfwood's dark eyes met Millie's gaze. He struggled with himself for a minute and then released the shorter Tagger, taking several steps back. The priest took a couple deep breaths, trying to ease the tension out of his frame.

"I'm sorry, I just…sorry. I overreacted, my humble apologies as a priest, ma'am, I am sorry." Wolfwood ran a hand through his hair, dragged it down the side of his face, and scraped his nails over the stubble on his chin.

"Did something happen to Vash?" Meryl asked, tugging her jacket straight.

"I'm not sure." Wolfwood admitted, "He went out to get a replacement bulb for his heat lamp over an hour ago and he hasn't come back. I haven't heard from him at all."

"Maybe he's stuck in the rain?" Millie offered, "Have you called his cell phone?"

"Can you imagine Vash the Stampede with a cell phone?" Wolfwood said sarcastically, "Those things can be tracked, there's no way he'd carry one."

"He probably just packed up and left." Meryl huffed, crossing her arms.

"His things are still in my condo. No, something happened. Vash has been quiet since all the activity with the Nebraskas." Wolfwood picked at his lapel, itching to hold the hefty weight of his gun in his hand, "I kicked him out for a quick run because he was getting messily lethargic. He should have been back by now. Something's happened."

"You sure he didn't just get distracted by a squirrel or something?" Meryl scoffed, "He seems like the type."

"Are you sure you don't have a way to contact him?" Millie spoke over top of Meryl's sarcasm.

Wolwood shook his head distractedly, "Mm-mm, Vash comes and goes as he pleases. The only thing he's got for communication is that old earpiece of his. And I don't have a com for it."

"Why are you so sure something's happened to him?" Meryl's hard frown had faded a little, she looked curious, almost worried.

"You don't know him." Wolfwood said seriously, fixing her with a hard stare, "He's an idiot with a big heart who puts everyone else before himself. And it gets him into trouble. Lots of trouble. We have to find him before he does something monumentally stupid."

"For someone who's supposed to be his friend, you talk awfully mean about him, Mister Wolfwood." Millie chuckled and Wolfwood floundered, caught off guard, sputtering garbled excuses and flapping his arms in her direction.

"You said he went to get a new lightbulb?"

Wolfwood looked around at Meryl, still wary and untrusting of her, and nodded slowly. The short Tagger hmm'd thoughtfully and frowned at the floor,

"He probably wouldn't have wanted to go too far in this downpour, especially if he was walking. So he can't have gone very far. We can probably track him down easily enough. Come on, Millie!" Meryl slapped a fist into her open palm, that determined smirk on her face, "We've got a Plant to find!"

"Now hold on just a minute!" Wolfwood barked as the two girls began to dart about the condo, "There's no way I'm letting you chase after him! And don't even think about tagging him!"

"What on earth are you talking about?" Meryl asked, looking up at the priest with a small smile, "Tagging? That's silly." She looked away again as she tugged a shoe on, 

"We're looking for a friend who got lost in the rain."

-o-o-o-o-

It had taken a bus ride, a lot of walking, and an hour long train ride to get to Jenora Rock, the location of the nearest Greenhouse. And then another hardy climb up the rocky hill where the compound squatted, all grey and silver metal and sharp edges.

Vash was soaked and the stump of his left arm where the mechanical limb attached was sore from the chill and the damp. But he crouched amongst the squat trees and thick bushes, eyeing the pacing guards on the inside of the fence despite the rainfall. He'd been watching them for a good ten minutes, calculating, counting their steps and marking their time, looking for an opening so he could scale the fence and get into the compound.

Normally he would never have done this. Purposefully breaking and entering a Greenhouse (and attached Power Facility) just wasn't his style. He didn't do direct assaults and confrontations if he could help it. Tended to avoid them outright on principle alone. But this time he wanted to know if something was really happening to the Seedlings. And if there really was a Black Market then he'd put a stop to that too. He was no fan of the Greenhouses and Power Facilities but the words 'Black Market' didn't sit well with him at all. They left a sour taste in his mouth.

And that was nothing compared to the nausea associated with the Gung-Ho Guns.

The guards spun on their heels and Vash shot out of the bushes and climbed up the fence quick as the wind. But not quite quick enough.

On the top of the fence, wrapped tightly around the thick bar, was a coil of barbed wire. As Vash pressed his hand to the bar to vault himself over, it snagged his glove and threw off his balance. The Plant landed wrong, slamming into the ground on his knees, elbows, and face and still trying to roll to absorb the impact. The landing jarred his long frame and even as he scrambled to his feet with numb hands and a split lip, he knew there was no chance of stealth now.

"Halt!" The bang of a gun and Vash bolted, tripping over his tangled legs and trying to shake the ringing from his ears. He'd hit his head harder than he thought. He turned and darted in between two warehouses, ducking into their tall shadows. He didn't know where he was in the compound but if he could find a place to hide out for a while then maybe he could orient himself.

Vash burst out from between the warehouses, still running full tilt. But the blow to the head and the heavy rain meant he didn't spot the guard running at him until the woman was on top of him.

The pair hit the ground hard and rolled into a tussle. The woman was smaller than Vash but she was tough and brawny. She grabbed a fistful of his blond hair and slammed his head back into the pavement. The world spun and Vash's grip loosened. She hit him in the side of the head with the butt of her gun and he struggled harder, kicking his long legs and trying to roll over, trying to throw her off. Three blows to the head weren't doing him any favors. His vision was turning into smears of gray, his limbs were sluggish in obeying him, the rain felt even colder as it hit his stinging face and slid down his neck.

Unwilling to give in, frightened by the idea of capture, Vash gave an all mighty heave, and pushed the guard away. She rolled and skidded across the the concrete and Vash staggered to his feet, stumbling sideways and slamming into the front of a warehouse. Raised voices, muffled by head injuries, reached his ears and he knew if he didn't run now he'd be caught.

He tried to run but the world laughed and slid out from under him, catapulting him into the front of the warehouse again. The sharp snap from a gun made him jerk his head up but the stinging pain of a bullet grazing his leg brought him to his knees. He fumbled for his gun, pawing at his voluminous coat.

Someone tackled him again and this time, when his head cracked against the ground, he did not fight back.

-o-o-o-o-

"Tall guy. Really tall. With blond hair and a red coat. He was probably looking at your lightbulbs."

"Oooooh, yeah, yeah, I know who you're talking about." Said the older man behind thecounter of the tiny hardware store, nodding in affirmation of Wolfwood's questions, "Lanky fella, more limbs than anything else. Yeah, he was in here for a bit. Hurried out again though without buying anything."

"Do you know where he went?" Wolfwood pressed, leaning on the countertop, "Or why he left so quickly?"

"Mm, can't say I know where he went. Looked like he turned right when he left the shop but it was hard to tell. I was helping two other folks and they were arguing pretty loud like. Something about Black Markets and Plants shortages. Ridiculous."

"That idiot!" Wolfwood hissed to himself but he put on a wan smile for the shop keeper, "Thank you, sir, you've been very helpful. Have a nice day."

It took all his willpower to simply walk out of the store instead of running full tilt back to his old Jeep.

"I know where he went." The priest said in a tight voice, climbing into the driver's seat and shedding rainwater as he did so, "He went to Jenora Rock."

"The Greenhouse?" Meryl leaned forward from her spot in the back seat, "Why on earth would he go there?"

"Because he fell for one of those stupid rumors the Power Facilities like to spread around," Wolfwood grunted, throwing the Jeep into gear and sending up waves of up the sides of his vehicle as he peeled down the street, "Every so often, they spread these rumors to try and catch extremists, radicals, Plant supporters, and so on. It's like a dumb competition between Facilities. Vash heard a rumor about a Black Market for Seedlings--one that those stupid places have used before--and he believed it."

"How do you know it's a rumor, Mister Priest?" Millie asked from her spot in the back beside Meryl.

"Because it's nearly impossible for Plants to be grown outside of Greenhouses." Came the short reply, "And on the rare occasion they do, there are so few of them, no one would be able to cut a profit."

"That still doesn't explain why he'd go to the Jenora Rock Greenhouse." Meryl pointed out as the edges of December fell away and they drove out into open country.

"Because he wanted check if the rumors were true or not. That complete moron! Idiot! Stupid! Dumbass! Needle Noggin!" Wolfwood pounded his fist into the steering wheel, "He thinks he has to do this shit on his own! I'm going to kick his ass from here to Augusta when we're through with this bullshit!"

Meryl and Millie shared a wary glance as the Jeep dove deeper into the rain and closer to Jenora Rock.

Just what had they gotten themselves into.

 


	8. High Noon

\------

_"I sure do appreciate your groundless self confidence in situations like this." - Fayt Leingod, Star Ocean: Till the End of Time_

\------

Wolfwood was going to kill someone.

Preferably Vash the Stampede but since that was the very person they were going to rescue, he'd have to settle for someone else.

Several someone elses.

Like maybe the entire Power Facility.

Yeah, that sounded good.

Maybe he'd just…shoot everyone inside and be damned how Vash whined about it.

He and the Tagger girls were sitting in his Jeep, hidden behind some pathetic looking squat trees so they could observe the Greenhouse/Power Facility from a distance. The rain had let up a bit, which made visibility a bit better, but it was still difficult to view through a rain smeared window.

"That idiot had to go and get himself captured during the damn rainy season…" Wolfwood grunted, leaning against the window and squinting hard. One hand was resting inside his suit jacket, fingers curled around the pistol that waited there.

"How do you know he's been captured?" Meryl asked, peering through the window as well, "It looks pretty quiet to me…"

"Exactly. It's not burning to the ground and nothing's damaged, broken, smashed, or anything. If Vash had come through here, you'd be able to see it." Wolfwood said and then he made an angry noise of frustration, "Ahg, this is bullshit!" He slammed the Jeep door open and stomped out into the drizzle.

Meryl jumped out after him, Millie closing the doors behind them as she followed, "What are you doing? You're not going in there are you?"

"Of course I am. They're not going to bring him out here to us." Wolfwood growled. But instead of heading directly to the Greenhouse-Facility, he walked around to the back of the Jeep, pulled the trunk open, and flipped up a hidden compartment in the floor. He reached in, grabbed what he was looking for, and backed out, slamming the trunk closed. Wolfwood turned towards the fenced in compound, slinging a great gun over his shoulder. It was a massive silver and black piece wrapped in thick leather straps that was bigger than Vash's, as big as Wolfwood's arm, two pieces stretching out from the sides to make the weapon into the shape of a cross. It was a killing machine, made for slaughter in mass numbers, and there was something about it that was beautiful and terrifying.

Like a wolf bearing it's teeth, hackles raised, ready to bite down into the throat of whatever stood in its way.

"…what kind of priest are you?" Meryl breathed, rain water dripping from her hair.

Wolfwood glanced over his shoulder at her, dark eyes hard and angry, "The kind that does the Lord's dirty work."

-o-o-o-o-

They snuck around to the back of the compound, closest to the Power Facility, and climbed the fence as quietly as they could. Wolfwood's sleeve snagged on the barbed wire at the top and he almost fell but a quick reorientation and a sharp yank saved and freed him. They made it to the ground safely.

"Awfully quiet for having caught a fugitive." Merly murmured, blinking beads of water from her eyelashes. The rain had faded into a light mist that was still bone shudderingly cold but easier to move through.

"They're probably keeping it quiet because they don't quite know what they've caught." Wolfwood said, squinting through the drizzle, "Come on, Power Facility's this way." And he set off with a purposeful stride towards their destination.

"Uh, Mister Wolfwood?" Millie whispered as she and Meryl hurried after the priest, "What's the plan? How are we going to get Mister Vash out?"

"I've got a few ideas." Wolfwood answered vaguely. There was a moment of silence and then he glanced over his shoulder at the pair of Taggers, "Why'd you come along anyway? Isn't this a little illegal for agents of the government?" His eyes hardened, "And isn't this the end result you wanted anyway? Vash the Stampede locked up in some Facility somewhere?"

Meryl tore her gaze away from Wolfwood, dropping it to the pattern of her shoes moving across the pavement. It was a moment or two before she answered,

"It is illegal, yes. But it's also illegal for Power Facilities to take the capture and use of stray Plants into their own hands. All stray Plants are supposed to be handled by Taggers and Hunters. And besides I…" She hesitated and then lifted her chin, resolute, stubborn, "I want to talk to him. About what happened with the Nebraskas. I need to talk to him. I--"

Whatever else she was going to say was lost when they rounded a corner and came face to face with a couple of guards. Before anyone could get a word out, however, there were two sharp cracks of gunfire and the two guards dropped to the ground, clutching at bleeding holes in their legs.

The barrel of Wolfwood's gun hissed and smoked in the cold wet air.

Millie and Maryl stared at him.

"B-but…Mister Wolfwood," Millie began, "I…I thought--"

"I am not like Vash." Wolfwood said coldly, keeping his back to the pair of them. He jerked his arm back and the gun snapped out of his hand, spinning around to sling over his shoulder again, "We have very different views of the world, he and I. And he's called me a coward more than once for it. But right now we don't have time to discuss philosophy. We've got an idiot to rescue."

"Wait, how do you even know he's in the Power Facility?" Meryl asked, skirting the two guards to follow after Wolfwood, "He could be anywhere in this place!"

"Nah, they've got him in the main Facility." The priest said, "There's no way they'd put him in the Greenhouses with other Plants and risk him riling them up. No, they're going to want him somewhere they have the most control over him. And that's in the Facility. We have to get in there quickly."

"Why? What are they going to do to him?" Millie's voice sounded fearful, "You…you don't think they'd actually…hook him into a Bulb, do you?"

"That's exactly what I'm afraid of." A snap of thick leather and that ferocious gun spun out again, striking another guard in the temple and dropping him like a stone.

There came the fizzling shot of a stun gun and Wolfwood looked around sharply to see that Millie had taken out another guard, her features set in a determined frown,

"Well then, we can't let them use Mister Vash as a battery! He's too kind for that! Right Meryl?"

Meryl looked up at her partner and then sighed, "Yes, I suppose we do have to put a stop to this. It is illegal, after all."

The smallest smirk quirked Wolfwood's mouth, "That's the spirit. Come on, girls, we're going to run into a lot more trouble. You'd best be ready."

"Bring it on!" Millie huffed into the cold.

"Let's get a move on!" Meryl urged, brushing past Wolfwood, "It's cold out here. Besides, that idiot owes me an explanation and I'm not letting him off the hook that easily!"

The closer the unlikely trio got to the Power Facility, the more guards they saw. Meryl, as it turned out, had more than a tagging gun in her possession and she handled her stun gun with just as much deadly accuracy. Millie was a force both with her own gun and by her sheer size. She plowed through through the ranks with a ferocity that even Wolfwood had to be impressed with.

This didn't mean they made it through unscathed.

Wolfwood's suit was scratched with barely dodged bullets and there was an impressive bruise swelling on his cheek from the lucky shot of a guard's fist. Millie was battered and limping slightly and Meryl had a nasty scrape on her forehead. But none of these slowed them down and when they burst through the front doors of the Facility, frightening several people in white lab coats, it only bolstered their determination.

"All right, you two, here's the plan." Wolfwood paused in a hall, leaning against the wall so they could all catch their breath, "You girls find his gear--his coat and gun--they should be in a storage or evidence closet, shouldn't be too hard to find. I'll go get Vash and meet back with you here. We have to move fast, they've probably already called the police. Or other forces."

Meryl and Millie nodded and took off running down another hall. Wolfwood watched them go, pushed his damp hair from his face, and straightened up. He rewrapped the leather strap of his gun around his hand, slung the weapon over his shoulder, and set off down the hallway.

The look on his face spoke murder and any lab tech or plant engineer who glimpsed him quickly remembered they had somewhere else to be. Any guard who was foolish enough to try and stop him was left unconscious and/or bleeding on the floor.

Wolfwood took the most direct path straight through the facility. The only thing standing in his way was the ridiculously thick, electronically sealed doors to the Bulb room. The priest considered them for a moment, then backtracked down the hall, grabbed the nearest person in a white coat who looked important, and dragged them to the doors. It took a bit of persuasion but the tech finally saw the sensibility in opening the doors for the well meaning man with the huge gun and murder in his eyes.

When he burst through the doors, it took a hell of a lot of effort to stop himself from shooting up the place.

There were four Bulbs in the room, three of which were filled. The Plants in them were watching with wide eyes; this was probably the most excitement they had ever had in their long lives. All activity ceased when Wolfwood entered the room and he found his target easily enough.

Vash the Stampede was sprawled face down on a cart beside the empty Bulb, his arms and legs strapped down, surrounded by engineers and techs. The lab coats were in the middle of prepping him for insertion and one of the engineers had a long needle attached to a thick cable pressed against the back of Vash's neck, ready to drive it home before Wolfwood had interrupted. They were all staring at Wolfwood with fear and surprise, not sure what to make of this dark suited man with a giant gun.

The priest in question let out a furious snarl and strode across the room, swinging his gun around to aim at the engineer with the needle,

"Drop it. Right now." The man dropped it and raised his hands over his head, "Good. Now all of you _back away from him_." They scrambled to obey, backing away as quickly as they could. Wolfwood kept his cross gun aimed at no one in particular and fumbled with the straps holding Vash down, "Come on, Needle Noggin, up and at 'em. We've got places to be. You don't belong here. Wake up you spiky headed moron!" And he thumped Vash on the back.

The blond Plant let out a soft groan and shifted, dragging his hands under his chest to hoist himself up. His mechanical arm scraped against the metal of the cart and the noise seemed to jar him out of his stupor. He blinked, shaking his head, and then realized that all human decency had been taken away from him and promptly covered himself with his hands.

Wolfwood rolled his eyes and swung his gun around to point at one of the techs, "You. Pants. Take them off."

"Wh-what? M-my p-p-p--"

"Yes! Your pants! Take them off! Now!"

"Wolf'ood don' threaten people fer their clothes…" Vash slurred.

"Shut up, I am not hauling you out of here butt naked." Wolfwood snapped as the tech trembled his way out his pants. Wolfwood snatched them from the man and threw them at Vash, "Put those on and let's go! The girls are waiting for us!"

"The Tagger girls are here?" Vash tripped over himself pulling the pants on but he managed eventually. They were too short and rode up his ankles but they'd have to do.

Wolfwood grabbed the Plant's arm and started dragging him out of the room, "Yes, they're here. And the police will be here soon too if we don't _move_!" He shoved Vash hard and the Plant stumbled and tripped, still under the heavy influence over whatever they'd dosed him with.

A high pitched keen came from the room behind them and Vash froze, looking back over his shoulder with wide eyes, "My siblings…"

"Not _now_ , Needle Noggin! Later! I swear, we can deal with it later! You're in no condition for this! MOVE!" Wolfwood pushed again and, after a moment, of resistance, Vash yielded.

They moved as quickly as they could down the halls, Vash tripping, slipping, and sliding and Wolfwood hoisting him up and dragging him along. It was not a pleasant trip. Wolfwood couldn't effectively wield his cross gun while he was hampered by an addled Vash. A few of the techs and engineers got a little bold and threw various, inexpensive objects at the pair before ducking behind their lab doors. Wolfwood elbowed Vash hard in the ribs to get the Plant to pick up his feet. Vash complied, in a way, staring hard at the floor as he forced his legs to obey him. It was still slow going but at least Vash's head was clearing and he was making an effort to move as quickly as he could.

They met up with Meryl and Millie near the front doors. Millie had he arms full of Vash's massive leather duster and his heavy boots. Meryl was holding his heavy Colt in one hand and her stun gun in the other. The pair looked up as Wolfwood approached and Meryl's mouth dropped open. Wolfwood couldn't blame her. Vash's body was riddled with scars, chunks of flesh scoured from his thin frame, steel bands and bolts holding his skin into place or grafted in to cover a nastier injury. All of those injuries were prices he paid for doing everything he could to keep people alive, even if they were trying to kill him.

"Oogle later, move now!" Wolfwood barked, shoving Vash forward.

The Plant stumbled, caught himself, and snatched his boots from Millie. He shoved them onto his bare feet without bothering to do up the buckles and then swept the Colt from Meryl's grip before she could blink. She glanced up at him and he gave her a wane smile before turning away and hurrying down the hall. He made a somewhat comical sight, an incredibly tall and scarred man in too-small slacks and heavy boots running down the hall.

The other three hurried after him, Wolfwood helping Millie sling the coat over her shoulder so he could fire a little bit easier. Vash was already tumbling out the front door ahead of them. But instead of continuing to run into the open yard of the compound, he froze on the threshold, his frame taunt.

"Why'd he stop!?" Meryl shouted, "We need to get out of here! I could probably clear things up through the office with the police but it would take too much time and Vash would end up in lockdown if we did that! And I…need to talk to him…"

They cleared the front door and they all stopped in their tracks around Vash. Wolfwood's gun thudded against his thigh as his arm dropped and his eyes widened. Meryl gagged and pressed her hand over her mouth, turning away. Millie braced a hand on her shoulder, shuddering.

The Jenora Rock Greenhouse-Power Facility compound was a massacre.

Corpses of guards and plant engineers and technicians were piled and scattered across the concrete. Blood was pooled in puddles of rain water, smeared across walls, drenched into the bodies themselves. The grounds had been painted red with the blood of the dead.

"Who…who the hell did this!?" Wolfwood's fist clenched around the leather strap of his gun and he swung it up, catching it in his palm. His anger was tangling with fear because this…this was inhuman. That someone or something had killed _so many_ in the short amount of time they had been in the Facility, it was enough to put fear into the heart of any man.

But not Vash.

Vash looked broken. Distraught. Anger and sadness was scratched in hard lines across his features. The grip of his gun creaked as his fingers tightened around it. He took a step forward, boot scraping the concrete, and then stiffened. He head snapped around and he whirled to face the building again, eyes sharp and searching.

"…Mister Vash?" Millie asked in a shaky voice.

"Run." The Plant said and then, "Run! Get out of here! Get out of here now!" He spun around, gaze wild, angry, as vengeful and fiery as anyone had seen them, "Just get out of here! Go!"

"What the hell are you on about, Needle Noggin!?" Wolfwood shouted.

"I SAID RUN YOU IDIOT!" Vash roared and his gun was suddenly in Wolfwood's face, "IF YOU VALUE YOUR LIVES THEN _RUN_! AS FAR AWAY FROM HERE AS YOU CAN!"

"Why!? Do you know what happened here!?" Meryl had found her feet again, "You know who did this!?"

Vash's gaze snapped to her and she almost flinched away from him, "Listen to me closely. The person who did this--they won't hesitate to kill you simply because _you're with me_. You…Meryl, you and Millie need to _run_. Follow Wolfwood and just _go_. Get out as fast as you can and get as far away as you can!" He turned away, glaring into the building, gun trembling in his hand,

"It's him. He's here. And if I fight him I…" He swallowed hard and clenched his fists, forcing himself to stop shaking, "I don't know what could happen. I don't remember before. There's a _void in my memories_. I don't know what happened. Now GO!" And he took off running back into the Facility.

"Are you talking about what happened in July!? Vash!" Wolfwood shouted, making to follow him. A bullet cracking the pavement in front of him cause him to stumble back, "Vash!"

"Run away, Nicholas!" Vash's voice echoed back to them, "Take the Tagger girls and run! This place is going to blow sky high! Get yourselves to a safe place! Please, just go!"

Wolfwood struggled with himself for a minute and then spun away, grabbing a fistful of Millie's coat, dragging her along. She snatched at Meryl and together they started running. Something in Vash's voice, something about the way he was moving, something about the fact that he'd shot at Wolfwood. It compelled them to run.

They ran through the front gate, wide open and mangled off its hinges, decorated with blood and dismembered limbs and skidded down the sloped drive. The heels of their shoes were sticky with blood and there was panic in their tread. But Millie still clung tightly to Vash's duster and Wolfwood kept glancing back over his shoulder at the retreating facility.

Then the earth shook. There was a searing roar, a sound that was so deep and so loud that it was more like a feeling, a drumming burn that thundered in the chest. A wind kicked up, a hurricane that sucked and tugged and pulled, yanking at them, trying to pull their legs out from under them.

And then came the light.

Bright, burning, and cold. It streaked into the sky, a beacon, a pillar of light that blasted away the thick clouds and seared the gray sky overhead.

The wind knocked them to the ground, the light made them shield their eyes, and their screams were lost in the roar.

And in an instant, Jenora Rock was gone.

 


	9. An Industrial Accident of the Cosmos (otherwise known as fate)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well I got a couple of new comments on this which...honestly surprised me. I didn't think many people were reading this so I just. Dropped it. I don't know that I'll ever finish it, maybe I will, I'm not sure. But I have a handful of prewritten chapters just sitting on my computer and it'd be a shame if no one ever read them.  
> So I'll post what I have and if anyone likes this and wants me to keep going I'll see what I can do. No promises though. Thanks for reading this guys, hope you've enjoyed it!

\-----

_“Sometimes, when one person is missing, the whole world seems depopulated.” - Alphonse de Lamartine_

\-----

It turned out five years was enough time to mellow out people's fears.

But rekindle those fears and the likelihood of that flame going out again was small.

Jenora Rock.

The name was whispered with a reverent sort of fear. And hot on the heels of it came the legends of a devil in a red coat. A man with blond hair and a huge gun. A man who slaughtered anyone who stood in his way.

Lost July.

Jenora Rock.

People murmured that he was the Devil. They called him Death, one of the Four Horsemen, paving the way for the Apocalypse. Demon. Reaper. The Man from Hell. They cursed his name. And they feared it.

Panic and terror sank their teeth into the world and began tearing it to shreds.

But of Vash the Stampede, there was no sign.

He had disappeared at Jenora Rock and no one had seen him since. There had been false alarms, of course. Like any legend, people saw him everywhere. Riding the Thomas Train out of Little Jersey. Feeding a stray cat in the slums of May City. Wandering the wastes of Indigo Valley.

Wolfwood trailed after these rumors like a man who'd lost his shadow.

And in a way, he had.

Vash had dogged his steps for the past five years. Ever since he'd rescued the Plant from wasting away in the desert, Vash had shown up and stirred his life up without warning. Wolfwood was Vash the Stampede's watchdog, his babysitter. And probably the only friend he had.

Wolfwood didn't believe for a minute that Vash was dead. Whatever had happened at Jenora Rock, Vash had sensed it coming. Perhaps even caused it given that the place had ended up the same way as July. A pile of rubble with no one left alive. No bodies. No voices. Nothing had been left, not even the Plants. Wolfwood felt a little sick to his stomach at the thought of Vash causing so much destruction and death. Wolfwood might have been a mercenary, a man who pulled the trigger at his employer's wishes and ended lives of people on the blacklist. But Vash was not that kind of man.

Wolfwood shifted in his seat, longing for a cigarette and having to settle for watching the land pass by outside the train window. The further North he went, the colder and wetter it got. He might have disliked the heavy rain in December but he loathed the snow that tended to build up in the far North. Snow; thick, wet, and sticky or dry, fluffy, and everywhere, either way Wolfwood was no fan. And neither was Vash which made it rather ridiculous for Wolfwood to be heading towards the biggest North city to look for him.

But rumors of a man in red drove him there.

He had to find Vash.

He had to know what had actually happened at Jenora Rock.

He had to have answers.

-o-o-o-o-

Traveling by train and bus was cheaper than taking his jeep cross country. But it came with the cost of having to jump between rides, racing to stations, and staying in shoddy motels waiting for his next bus or train. And with the weather slowly turning colder, Wolfwood was beginning to question whether it was worth going this far North to look for a spiky-haired idiot. He thought about turning back, but knew he never would.

Which was why he was stepping off the bus into a small town with too many pizza places and one, rusted out musty smelling motel. In order to get to the North's biggest city, he had to catch a bus from this place to another city and hop another train.

"Hey, driver, when's the bus to the next town supposed to come through?" Wolfwood asked, hand on the door to stop it from closing.

"Not for four days, buddy. There’s a steamer bus coming in three but that’s headin’ South.” The driver yanked the door closed and Wolfwood, stumbled back under the overhang of the station, dragging his bags along with him. He glared at the bus as it pulled away, lifted his bag over his shoulder, and stomped down the sidewalk to find the tiny motel to rest his feet. It wasn't hard to find and soon enough Wolfwood was back out in the cold again, a scarf wrapped tight around his neck and his prominent nose shoved deep into the collar of his wool over coat. Food was next on his list; somewhere warm to eat with hot food and hotter coffee. 

Not for the first time, the priest wished for the warmth of his condo back in December.

There was a small, local, restaurant-bar a little way down the street from the motel and Wolfwood gratefully ducked inside out of the chill bite of the wind. There wasn't snow yet but frost was beginning to cling to things in the early hours of the morning and that was enough to make the priest long for warmer climates. He gladly took a seat by the heater, shedding his coat and scarf and slinging them over the back of his chair, and ordered a coffee and some thick soup. Then he leaned back in his seat, pulled out his phone, and started scouring the internet for anymore rumors of Vash the Stampede.

The clink of dish ware made him look up automatically before he dropped his attention back to his phone. Then he looked up again, eyes widening, phone lowering to the tabletop, forgotten,

"No way…Livio? Livio, is that you?"

The board-shouldered man with close cropped platinum blond hair who had been loading dirty dishes into a tub from the table next door looked around at Wolfwood. He gave the priest an empty look and then, slowly, realization dawned on his features and a small smile appeared on his face,

"Nicholas? Is it actually you? I don't believe this; what are you doing way out here?"

"I was about to ask you the same thing!" Wolfwood stuffed his phone into his pocket and leaned forward with a grin as the tall, burly man settled back against the table he'd been clearing, "I knew you'd left but I had no idea you'd come this far North."

Livio shrugged one massive shoulder, "I've been wandering. After you left, it got kind of quiet. I packed up and moved out shortly after you did. Been drifting around ever since."

Wolfwood nodded in understanding, "How'd the kids take it? I know they weren't happy about me leaving…"

"Eh," Livio scratched at left side of his face where a black tattoo was etched over his eye, up his forehead, and down his cheek, a jagged spider, a sharp reminder of days long past, "Yeah, they were pretty mad at me. Probably upset they were losing their second favorite jungle gym."

"And…the others?"

Livio was quiet, his gaze dropping to his peeling sneakers, "They're--"

"Hey! Livio! You're not on vacation! Get back to work!"

"Ah! Y-yeah sorry!" Livio snatched up his tub of dirty dishes, "Sorry Nick. We'll catch up when I get off work. You stayin' in the motel?"

"Yeah, room five. Bring some beer. We gotta catch up. Talk."

Livio nodded, hefted up the tub, and headed back towards the kitchen. Wolfwood watched him go and then flopped back into his seat with a heavy sigh. Running into an old childhood friend wasn't something he'd expected but it wasn't entirely unwelcome either. He and Livio shared a lot in common, more than either of them cared to admit to, but in this case those similarities might bring Wolfwood some much needed help.

-o-o-o-o-

Wolfwood was tolerating the cold air from the open window so he could enjoy a much needed cigarette. He was trying to empty his mind, to relax. But thoughts of home, of Livio, and of Vash kept slipping into the empty space he was trying to create. And it was frustrating him. He'd been looking for Vash for three months and had so far his efforts had turned up nothing. To say it was disheartening was a bit of an understatement.

A knock on the door shook him out of his head, "It's open."

Livio slid into the room, shutting the door and locking it behind him. He was holding a six pack of beer in his hand and he held it up for Wolfwood's inspection. There was a small, wary smile on his face, as if he was expecting retribution, “Sorry it’s cheap stuff. Can’t afford much else as a bus boy.”

“I don’t care. Cheap is better than none, I say.” Wolfwood flicked his cigarette into the snow outside and swung the window shut. He pulled the curtains and gestured for Livio to take a seat at the tiny motel table.

They both cracked open a beer in silence.

“So…what are you doing up here?” Livio asked in a small voice after several minutes of quiet. He was genuinely curious, watching Wolfwood carefully, the sme wary man he’d always been.

A lie squirmed on Wolfwood’s tongue but he swallowed it with a swig of beer. He set the bottle down a little harder than necessary, looking at the peeling veneer of the tabletop rather than at his old friend,

“I’m looking for Vash.”

Livio stiffened and Wolfwood shot him a glance. Livio looked away. And that was all the answer Wolfwood needed.

“You’ve seen him, haven’t you? He’s been through here!”

“He…might have.” Livio said hesitantly, picking at the label on his bottle, “He kinda asked me not to tell anyone. But if you’re up here looking for him…” He paused, looked up at the priest across from him, “Did he actually do that Jenora Rock? Did he actually destroy it?”

Wolfwood shook his head, “I don’t know. He was there. We both were. But he ran off, told us to get as far away as possible. Next thing I knew there was this—this light. And sound. And then it was gone. Just gone. I’ve never seen anything like it.” Wolfwood leaned back in his seat, drumming his fingers on the table, “Livio, if you know where Vash went, you need to tell me. I have to find him. I just—I have to.”

Livio stared at Wolfwood, his gaze hard or once instead of soft and wary. Business mode then. He gave the priest a searching look, tilted his head to one side, and then sighed,

“I can do you one better, Nick. I can take you to where he is now.”

-o-o-o-o-

Livio lived in a shitty little apartment complex in the shittiest part of the shitty town. But the humbleness of it seemed to suit the man just fine. Livio was a man of simple wants and needs—much simpler than Wolfwood who needed more space to himself than most. And yet even with all that humbleness he was guarded and quiet and kept mostly to himself. Though he smiled at the neighborhood kids when they called to him.

“You’re still a big baby.” Wolfwood muttered to him as they mounted the steps to the apartment building, “Going all sappy for the kids like that.”

“I prefer to think of myself as a teddy bear.” Livio replied airily, with all the snark of someone who has taken Wolfwood’s bullshit for too many years and knows how to dish it back out, “Besides, you’re one to talk. You still carry candy around in your pockets for them, you little creep.”

Wolfwood snorted, hefted his bag higher on his shoulder, and didn’t answer. Livio chuckled and pulled his key out of his pocket, unlocking his door. He led Wolfwood into the small apartment, flipping on the lights as he went, and shed his winter coat onto a rickety coat stand by the door. Wolfwood followed suit, looking around the room.

The area seemed to be one big room, the sitting room and small kitchen divided only by a change from carpet to peeling linoleum. There was a small door cracked against one wall leading to a tiny bathroom and another door that was closed tight. Livio moved into the kitchen area, stoked up the coffee pot for a warm drink, and then walked over to the closed door that Wolfwood guessed was the bedroom. He cast a glance at Wolfwood, beckoned to him, and then pushed the door open.

The interior of the room was dark, a blanket hung over the window to block out the winter light. The bed, a darker outline against the already dark window, was a lumpy mess, piled high with blankets. And it was breathing.

“Vash.” Livio said in a soft voice, creeping into the room, “Hey, Vash, I’m home. I brought some beer. And…a guest.”

The pile of blankets shifted ever so slightly and a pair of eyes shimmered momentarily in the gloom. Then they vanished. Any of the rage that Wolfwood might have felt towards his old friend sputtered and died. Because the look in Vash’s eyes was the same pathetic, broken look he’d had when he’d almost relapsed all those years ago. He was on the brink and Wolfwood didn’t want to push him over it.

The priest sighed, shoulders slumping, and brushed passed Livio into the room proper. He set his bag on the floor and leaned against desk by the bed, looking down at the tuft of blond hair peeping out from underneath the blankets,

“I’ve been looking for you, idiot. What have you been doing for the past _six months_ that I’ve been _looking for you_?”

Vash shifted under the blankets, pushing them back and sitting upright to lean against the headboard. He looked tired and old, heavy stubble on his jaw, his hair shaggy and hanging in his face, his figure far leaner than it should have been. 

“I figured you’d find me eventually,” Vash murmured, his voice hoarse. He kept his gaze on his hands tangled together in his lap, metal and rubber standing out starkly against calloused skin, “I was just…scared. Afraid to hurting more people. So I…I retired. To live peacefully, keep to myself, not bother anyone. I just hadn’t found my feet yet. I should have known you’d come sniffing after me.”

“I always will. Somebody’s gotta keep an eye on you.” Wolfwood dug in his bag and pulled out an object wrapped tightly in heavy cloth. He dropped it into Vash’s lap, “Special delivery. I managed to sneak it out of the wreckage of Jenora Rock. You’re lucky the police didn’t find it.”

Vash looked at it sadly, plucking at the twine Wolfwood had used to bind the cloth closed. The look on his face clearly said he knew what was underneath but the sorrow in his gaze intensified all the more when he revealed his trusty Colt. He pulled down the sleeve of his faded sweater and rubbed at a mark on it automatically.

“You’re cruel, Nicholas.” The Plant said in a soft voice, curling his fingers delicately around the grip and hefting the heavy weapon off the bed, “I was just getting used to the idea of retirement.”

“Sorry Vash,” Wolfwood’s voice said he meant it, “But I just couldn’t let you keep freeloading off of Livio. The big baby probably wasn’t even charging you rent, was he?”

“I, uh—“ Livio sputtered in the background.

“Aw, can it, Doublefang! You spoiled him just ‘cause he looked at you with his big whimpery eyes.” Wolfwood swept his bag up, turning around to smirk at Livio who’s ears had turned red, “I can’t believe you let him sleep in the bed. Didn’t you learn anything? See, this is why he walks all over you. You gotta _train him_.” And he reached out and flicked Vash in the side of the head.

“Ah! Ow! Wolfwood!” The Plant glared at the priest, rubbing a hand through his dirty blond hair.

“I’m leaving in three days,” Wolfwood said seriously and Vash dropped his hand, wrapping it around his gun again, “I trust you to make the right decision by that time.” And with that, he turned on his heel and marched out. But his voice called back to them as he reached the door of the apartment,

“Livio, make sure the idiot takes a bath. I’m not taking him home smelling like plant rot!”

Vash nearly hit Livio with a shoe as he hurled it out the bedroom door after the laughing priest.

 


	10. Moving Forward, Letting Go, and Other Emotional Baggage

\-----

_“Reality bites with a variety of sizes of teeth.” — Tony Follari_

\-----

Three days of grumbling, late night drinking, and talks of old times later found Vash sharing a bench at the bus stop with Wolfwood. Livio was working and hadn’t been able to see them off but he promised to visit sometime (“Why don’t you come with us? Even December’s better than this shit hole.” “Nah, I like it out here. I’ll move on sooner or later, you know me.”).

Vash was doubled over in his seat, elbows resting on his knees, head bowed, gloved hands clasped together against the cold. His coat was a patched up, second-hand thing that was still an obnoxiously bright shade of red, his blond hair was shoved under a knit cap, his pants were too short, and he looked altogether like a homeless man. The raggedy looking travel bag between his feet didn’t help matters.

Beside him, Wolfwood lounged back on the bench as if it were a throne. His face turned towards the grey wintery sky, a cigarette smoldering between his teeth, his arms draped across the bench, he was the very picture of someone who simply didn’t care. But the clouded look in his dark eyes said differently. It had been a struggle to get Vash to agree to come back and there had been several times when Wolfwood had second-guessed himself and wondered if leaving the Plant alone might have been the best option. But he knew it wasn’t; he knew Livio couldn’t handle Vash when the Plant finally broke, he knew Vash wouldn’t crawl out of this depression on his own, and he knew going back to the warm familiarity of December would be best for Vash.

That didn’t stop him from feeling a little bad about physically dragging Vash out of the comfort of a friend’s home.

“How’d you find Livio anyway?” Wolfwood cut through the quiet of the bus stop, leaning forward a bit to question Vash, “You couldn’t have known he was here. I didn’t even know he’d left.”

“I just found him on accident,” Vash admitted, still contemplating his clasped hands, “I’d been wandering around, just kept going North because that was getting farther away from—anyway. I came to this place a few weeks ago I think. I saw Livio leaving the diner and I followed him to his place.” The Plant shrugged, “I asked if I could stay with him and he took me in without question.”

“What did you do before that?”

Vash was quiet for a while, twisting his gloved fingers together, and when he answered it was a low voice,

“I don’t remember what happened at Jenora Rock, Wolfwood. That’s the honest to God truth. It’s like…it’s like before. There’s this gap. A hole. I can’t put the pieces together right, they don’t fit.” He closed his eyes, trying to sort things out, and Wolfwood watched him quietly, “I remember going to the Facility. I remember getting caught. I remember you and the Tagger girls showing up. And I remember…I remember…” He swallowed hard, voice shivering, “It’s jumbled after that but I knew what had happened. So I ran. Some people who worked at a homeless shelter found me when I collapsed and took care of me for a while. But I couldn’t stay there. They were too kind, too gentle, too human—“ Vash broke off, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes, a tremor running through his long frame,

“Wolfwood, I did a terrible thing. Jenora Rock. Lost July. I know I did but I can’t—I can’t remember! And it’s killing me! It’s e-eating me up! There’s things—dark things—and I don’t remember them and I can’t—“

“Easy, Needle Noggin.” Wolfwood clapped Vash on the shoulder, jarring him out of his shaken state, “Breathe, okay. Take a minute, just breathe, deep even breaths. Okay? All right?”

Vash swallowed, sucked in another breath and let it out slowly, “Y-yeah. Yeah, sorry. I just kind of got caught up in the moment. When’s our bus supposed to get here?”

Wolfwood frowned. Trust Vash to change the subject on the fly when he didn’t want to talk. But a bus stop in a tiny backwater town probably wasn’t the place to talk anyway. He looked away from the Plant, out into the snowy plains around them, and blew out a cloud of smoke,

“Soon. It’ll be here soon.”

-o-o-o-o-

Soon was a half hour later.

The giant steamer bus rolled in from the North, plowing up great drifts of snow as it slid to a halt at the docking platform. The Thomas steamer buses were few and far between and were only used for long distance travel. They were practically cruise ships on land with up to six levels, sleeping quarters, and an entire engine crew. Sometimes there were even bars or diners tucked inside them. They were expensive and tended to be full of rich snobs but for Vash and Wolfwood, they were the quickest and most direct route back to December. They were lucky that this particular steamer bus had stopped off at this town for a refuel.

Wolfwood had managed to scrape together enough to get them a room on one of the lower decks. Really, it wasn’t a room, per say, but was in fact just like a regular part of a bus with rows of seats for the passengers and little dirty windows for them to watch the scenery pass by. Food and drink had to be purchased elsewhere on the steamer bus and cost extra. Wolfwood dragged Vash on board, one hand clamped tightly on his friend’s arm and steering him into a seat by the window. Vash didn’t struggle or whine or even look up as they got settled in and the bus took off from the station. He was still deep in his own melancholy. Or depression. Or both.

“Hey, if you’re going to be a rain cloud this is going to be a very long trip.” Wolfwood grunted at him, “And I can’t even have a cigarette unless I go out onto the upper deck.”

“Nothing’s stopping you from going.” Vash pointed out wearily.

“Are you kidding? I’m not leaving you alone.” Wolfwood huffed and when Vash glanced at him, the priest hunched his shoulders, looking away, feather’s ruffled, “Besides, it’s freezing out there and I hate the cold.”

Vash made a noise that said he knew exactly what Wolfwood meant and turned away to stare out the window. There wasn’t much to see past the great waves of snow rolling by and the endless plains of it beyond. But it was still and serene and maybe that’s just what the Plant wanted right then.

Miles rolled away beneath the treads of the steamer bus. Passengers came and went. Time flickered by as the sun arched its way over the horizon and left them in the dark.

Wolfwood was asleep in the seat beside Vash, arms crossed over his chest and head tilted back as he snored. Vash himself was leaning against the chill of the window, watching the darkness and flicker of snow outside with lidded, tired eyes. When he felt someone watching him, his sea-green gaze darted up and met that of a little girl who was leaning over the back of the seat in front of him.

“Hi!” She said rather cheerfully when he looked at her.

“Hello.” Vash murmured, still leaning against the window.

“Are you hurt?” The little girl asked.

“Huh?”

“You look sad. Are you hurt somewhere? I have bandaids.”

Vash blinked, processing the words through his tired and muddied mind, and then couldn’t help the small smile that twitched his lips, “No. No, I’m not hurt. Well…actually, I guess my feelings are kind of hurt. My heart hurts. You can’t put a bandaid on that though.”

“Awww,” The little girl frowned, “That’s not cool! Wait, I know! Hang on a sec!” And she vanished back behind her seat. Vash waited for her to reappear, unable to quell the curiousness or the sparks of delight at the human child. When she popped back over the seat, she was grinning broadly, and thrust her cupped hands out towards him, “Hold your hands out like I am so you don’t drop any!”

Vash complied, if only to humor her. He was a little startled when she dumped a small handful of brightly colored candies into his gloved palms. He stared at them and then looked up at her.

“Candy always makes me feel better when I’m sad!” She explained helpfully, “And Swee’tarts are my favorite!”

“Yeah,” Vash beamed her, “They’re mine too.”

The little girl let out a squeal of delight and dove behind her seat again. Vash grinned and began sorting through the candy, picking through his favorites and munching happily on the tart candies. He still felt heavy and like there was some black goop sticking to the corners of his mind but the girl and her smile and her candy had perked him up enough.

“You gonna share those?”

Vash jumped and looked around to see Wolfwood eyeing the Sweettarts in his hand. The Plant scowled at him and dumped the rest into his mouth, chewing exaggeratedly. Wolfwood rolled his eyes,

“Yeah, okay, fine. Sure. What a pig. I bet Livio didn’t feed you properly you garbage disposal. Where’re we at, anyway?” He leaned around Vash, pushing the Plant against the seat to squint out the window, “Eh, it’s too dark to see. Well,” The priest flopped back in his seat, stretching his arms over his head, “Come on, let’s go out onto the top deck.”

“I thought you didn’t like the cold.”

“I don’t. But I wanna smoke. And you need to see something.”

-o-o-o-o-

The wind was bitter, biting cold and it snapped and bit and dug into any gaps in their clothing it could find. The dark expanse spreading out around them made it seem like the steam bus was the only thing on the planet, a speeding machine packed with warmth rushing over a bright circle of snow white in the night. The vastness and the sheer chill meant they were alone when they emerged from the stairwell onto the top deck.

Vash kept his eyes on his boots, shuffling along after Wolfwood with his hood up over his hat and his hands shoved into his pockets. Wolfwood led them around behind the steering cabin and out of the whipping winter wind. There he leaned against the side, tucked a cigarette between his lips, and cupped his hands around it as he tried to get it to catch. Vash leaned beside him, closing his eyes and listening to the sounds of the steamer bus.

Engine, thrumming through the whole frame. He could feel it rippling beneath his boots.

Heat, always heat, radiating from the great beast.

The hissing of steam, the clattering of pipes, the churning and crunching of its great treads and tires running through the snow.

Faintly the voices of the crew calling to one another through the wall of the steering cabin.

Even fainter, deep in the heart of the bus, the vague whisper of a Plant, powering the great machine. Energy burned to turn the fuel to make the bus run, to make the steam boil out through the vents. Whispering, whispering, murmuring not so much words but images, feelings, colors, sensations all transmitted through a sort of hive-mind telepathic connection.

_Work, working, burn, hot, it’s hot, but good hot, not-Plants, not-Plants in shades of orange and yellow. Not-Plants, not-siblings, take care, care, nice, thank you, some say words, grateful, thank you._

_A whisper, work, working, work, a whisper, a sibling? You? Us?_

_Hello. Hello hello hello brother, brother, sibling, hello, not-Plants say hello, we say hello. Hello, brother. Hello free brother. Your heart, blue, call it blue, not-Plants say blue. Your heart is cold, it hurts. Do not hurt, brother, sibling, us, do not hurt, do not, not alone, sorry, we hear it, heard it, feel it? Screams, brother, they screamed—_

“Hey. Needle Noggin.” An elbow nudged the Plant in the ribs and Vash glanced at him from under the edge of his hood, “I didn’t bring you up here to sulk.” Wolfwood held his cigarette a little clumsily in his gloved hands, smoke and condensation billowing out of his mouth, “Look up, you spiky-headed moron.”

Vash blinked at him and then tilted his head back, looking towards the black expanse above them.

Except that it wasn’t black.

It was a myriad of colors all shifting and melting and rippling into one another in a great river of light overhead. Well, that explained why the deck was so brightly lit despite it being the dead of night. Vash stared up at the dancing lights overhead, watching them flicker against the stars. They reminded him of how his captive siblings tended to communicate. Flickers of bright color filled with feeling and meaning. Red brisk against orange and yellow, tangling with green, seeping into blue and violet. All of it fluttering and melting together to blend into more colors and shine across the velvet black of the night.

“They call them the Northern Lights,” Wolfwood said, blowing smoke against lights and smearing more colors together, “Or the Bloom Aurora since, you know, Plant speak and all. You know people used to think they were the souls of spent Plants trying to wish their brethren well.”

“I know, I’ve heard the stories.” Vash murmured, pushing his hood back, not tearing his eyes away from the curtain of lights overhead, “They’re…amazing. Beautiful. I’ve never seen them before.”

“Awe inspiring, am I right?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I guess so.”

“Tch, you guess so. What a load of bull. Listen, Vash, I brought you up here to see this because—“

“Hey, do you see that out there?”

“Don’t interrupt me when I’m trying to give you a heartfelt and motivating speech! I practiced this, damn it!”

“But there’s something out there…” Vash was leaning over the railing of the deck, squinting into the dark, the wind tearing at his coat, “It…it looks like lights…”

“Lights? Out here?” Wolfwood moved over to join him, puffing agitatedly on his dwindling smoke, “But that’s impossible. We’re on a steamer bus route, well out of the way of normal roads and train tracks. There _can’t_ be anyone else out here.”

“Then how do you explain those off-roaders coming at as full speed?” Vash pointed out into the darkness where shapes were beginning to form around the distant lights.

Many, many shapes.

Wolfwood frowned and flicked his cigarette over the side. It spun away and vanished in a wash of snow,

“Well shit.”

“Those lights…look familiar…” Vash was leaning so far over the railing that Wolfwood had a momentary fear the Plant would topple right over it and plunge into the abyss of snow below.

Then he remembered this was Vash the Stampede and more than likely he’d just bounce all the way down.

“What do you mean by that?” Wolfwood squinted at the lights again, “They’re not steamer bus lights. Or regular car lights. Definitely not a train. Wait, you called them off-roaders, how could you tell?”

“The way the snow’s spraying up around the lights,” Vash answered, his gaze still fixed out into the dark, “Wait, Wolfwood, look. They’re different colors! Pink…and orange, I think. Maybe yellow?” The Plant suddenly leaned back, an expression of panicked realization blooming over his features, “Oh.”

“”Oh”?” Wolfwood repeated, “”Oh”!? What the hell does that mean!? What sort of trouble did you drag me into this time, shithead!”

“You’re the one that dragged me on board!” Vash shouted back, looking away from the on-coming lights to scowl at his friend, “Anyway that’s not important right now! We gotta get out of here! If they catch us, we’re dead!” And he peeled away from the railing, running towards the steering cabin.

“They!? Who’s they!? Hey! Vash—damn it, what’s going on!?”

“It’s Neon!” Vash cried, grabbing the handle of the cabin door, “It’s Brilliant Dynamites Neon and the Badlad Gang!”

That was when the first shot struck the side of the steamer bus with a tremendous, shuddering bang that toppled anything not pinned down.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, sorry for the cliffhanger! Hopefully I can get on again soon and not leave you hanging for so long. I usually don't this many author notes but I wanted to thank you all for the comments!! I don't reply individually to each comment a lot because I'm an embarrassed sap and never know what to say other than to gush my thanks, haha. So here's one big thank you to everyone still commenting on this!
> 
> I'm trying to work on this again, I really do want to. I had so many cool things planned for this fic and I hate to let it die. But between work and my car deciding to be a piece of shit, I'm stretched a little thing right now. So sorry! At least I have quite a few pre written chapters in reserve to keep you folks sated.
> 
> Again thank you all so much for reading and I hope you continue to enjoy this fic! (PS. Livio isn't just a cameo I promise!)


	11. The Humanoid Typhoon

\-----

_“We turned back the death of cities, we were there when Lady Neon died, we drove the creature called Blackout into the shadows at the end of the alleys, we are light, we are life, we are fire, and, would you believe it, the word that best describes our condition right now is cranky. Would you like to see what happens when you make us mad?” — from The Minority Council by Kate Griffin_

\-----

Someone is singing.

His head hurts, it feels like the world was tilting underneath him. Lights swim over his closed eyelids.

“ _Are you awake?_ ”

His eyes snap open, breath catching in his throat. Green grass as far as the eye can see. A single ancient oak spreading its branches overhead, the sunlight filtering through the shifting leaves.

He looks up to see her smiling down at him.

“ _What were you dreaming about?”_ She asks gently.

“ _I_ …” Words are thick, hard to come by. He doesn’t quite understand why, “ _Everything was cold. There was an endless expanse of darkness. I felt really small._ ”

“ _You are small, silly._ ” She stretches her hand out and for a second he thinks she will put it through his hair like she used to. But then she arches her back, arms reaching overhead, stretching. Then she relaxes, tucking her hands into her lap with a smile, “ _You’re so serious, Vash. You should smile more. You have a cute smile._ ”

His ears are warm, he knows he’s blushing, and he grins at her. He reaches out to touch her because she is safety and she is warmth and she is kindness but—

But he’s falling.

The earth is crumbling beneath him and she’s getting farther and farther away as he slips down, down, down.

“ _Rem!_ ” His voice is different, harsh, hoarse, heavy with so many years that should not have been there, “ _Rem, wait! Don’t go! Don’t leave us! Don’t leave us here alone! Rem! REM!_ ”

-0-0-0-0-

Vash’s head was fuzzy as he snapped back into consciousness.

The bang from that shot had knocked him over and his head had smacked into the heavy metal door of the steering cabin. The blow, combined with his weak and malnourished state, had been enough to knock him out momentarily.

So how was he moving down the stairs now?

As his mind settled back into place, he realized he himself wasn’t moving but that someone was dragging him. A hard grip under his arms, his heels knocking against the stairs as he was hauled downwards, his head lolled back against someone’s chest. He recognized the stench of cigarettes and gunpowder.

“Wolfwood…”

“Oh, good, you’re awake! You can walk yourself now!” Wolfwood shoved Vash upright, keep a stable hand on his back as the Plant pawed for the railing. Another bang and tremor ran through the steamer bus. Vash braced himself on the wall. His eyes felt hot and he rubbed at them furiously.

“You all right?” Wolfwood asked.

Vash nodded, sucking in a deep breath to steady himself, “Yeah, I’m fine. What’s going on?”

“The Bad Lads are attacking the steamer bus and we’re going down to get our guns.” Wolfwood answered, turning away and continuing down the steps.

“Uh, W-Wolfwood, hang on a sec!” Vash hurried to keep up, wincing as the crash of the footsteps on the metal steps slammed into the throbbing in his temple, “I—I don’t really wanna, you know, shoot anybody.”

“I’m not askin’ you to.” The priest in front of him grunted, turning down onto another level and hurrying down the next flight of stairs, “I’m asking you to help defend this bus. Or are you still retired?”

There was a bitter sting in Wolfwood’s voice and Vash winced again for a different reason.

He thought of the little girl who had leaned over her seat and asked if he needed a bandaid. He thought of how she’d shared her candy with him. He thought of the Northern Lights overhead. He thought of the Plant somewhere in the heart of the ship, perhaps blissfully unaware of the conflict outside its Bulb.

“Hurry up, Wolfwood. You’re moving too slow.”

Wolfwood smirked and shouldered open the door to their seats. He hurried past the frightened and confused passengers, Vash sticking to him like a second shadow, and yanked a bag down from the overhead storage. It took some digging but he pried both his and Vash’s guns from the bag, shoved it back into place, and tossed the Colt to Vash. The Plant caught it deftly but he seized up as the weight hit his hand. His gaze was suddenly heavy and dark.

“Hey.” Wolfwood grabbed his shoulder and gave him a light shake. Sea-green eyes looked up to meet a dark gaze with a friendly smile, “Later, okay. We’ll talk about it all later. Promise.”

The Plant blinked and then smiled that small, empty smile of his, “Okay.”

“Now come on, we’ve got a bus to save.” Wolfwood slung Cross Punisher over his shoulder with a snap of its leather strap and strode down the aisle towards the stairs.

Vash made to follow only to pause by the seat in front of his. The little girl from earlier was hiding in her mother’s arms. Both of them looked up when Vash stopped.

“Thanks for the candy.” He murmured. And then, in a whirl of red, he was gone, dashing after Wolfwood up the stairs,

“So what’s the plan?”

“Stop the bad guys from getting on board the bus.”

“Oh, that’s helpful.”

“What do you know about Neon and the Bad Lads?” Wolfwood asked as they thundered back up the stairs, pushing past frightened passengers who were trying to figure out what was going on.

“Uh. We might have…crossed paths before.”

“Why am I not surprised…”

“He was raiding another steamer bus with the help of this kid. I guess there was this safe in the bus somewhere and he wanted whatever was inside so he was going to make the bus crash hard enough to bust it open.” Vash said the words casually, but there was a weight to them, “I kinda tried to take him and his gang on by myself. I also might have challenged him to a duel for control of the bus.”

“Which you obviously won or I wouldn’t be speaking to you now.”

“Er…”

Wolfwood stopped at the door to the deck and turned around to glare at Vash, “What was that? Was that you admitting that you drove Brilliant Dynamites Neon back with such force that he pissed himself and vowed to live in peaceful retirement from now on?”

“Er…n-no. Not…not exactly.” Vash fiddled with the zipper on his coat, looking everywhere but at Wolfwood, “See, uh, I’d gotten shot by one of the Bad Lads and Neon noticed. He said it wasn’t a fair fight if I was injured and released control of the bus. But on the condition that if we ever met again…he was going to kill me.”

Wolfwood groaned and hit his head against the door, “God fucking damn it, Vash—“

“Hey, you can’t swear like that!”

“—we do not need a shootout in the middle of a snowy wasteland. So if you can kindly _keep your head down_ then that would be just dandy.”

Vash had a look on his face like he was struggling for a comeback. Eventually he just sighed and held up his hands in surrender, “Yeah, yeah, okay, you don’t need to be so mean…”

“To keep you in line, I do.” Wolfwood muttered and pushed the door to the deck open.

The icy wind smacked them in the face, followed by a sweeping spotlight from one of the off-roaders racing alongside the bus. Wolfwood winced and crouched low, running across the deck to lean against the railing. Vash joined him a second later, his gun swung up beside his head, ready to fire. Wolfwood looked at Vash, Vash looked at Wolfwood. They traded a nod and launched themselves to their feet, swinging their weapons over the rail. Wolfwood had one hand wrapped in the leather strap, yanked back to stabilize his huge gun, the other was tight around the trigger to fire into the darkness. Vash was beside him, both hands bracing his gun against the movement of the bus. The four security officers on board where firing wildly into the dark, trying to pretend that the two civilians on deck with them didn’t have better aim.

Six Bad Lad off-roaders had been wrecked before someone finally took a shot at them. Vash and Wolfwood ducked behind the railing, catching their breath. Vash chuckled, flipping his Colt open and reloading it with practiced ease,

“Looks like they spotted us!”

“You think!” Wolfwood checked his own ammo, found it satisfactory, and changed his grip on the leather strap, “We’re sitting ducks out here! And who knows how many of those off-roaders are left! Damn it!”

Vash cocked his head to the side, “I think there’s about ten. Maybe nine. It’s kind of hard to tell with the sound bouncing off the snow.”

Wolfwood opened his mouth to reply when there was another bang and something launched itself over the rail of the steamer bus. It dug into the wooden flooring and lodged itself there. In the light of the Bloom Aurora, it was very clearly a modified grappling hook. Wolfwood swore, took aim with Cross Punisher, and fired. The wood splintered and the grappling hook snapped free, flying off into the night. A scream went with it.

Another bang, another snapping clatter of a grappling hook digging into the wood in another part of the deck. Vash scrambled to his feet and ran off in the direction of the noise as Wolfwood slung his own gun back over the railing and started taking shots into the dark again. Vash skidded around the deck, squinting through the cold wind, and fired, knocking the hook free. Two more loud bangs and crunching of woods, followed by a third. Vash spun on his heel, swinging his gun around, only to shriek and dive to the floor of the deck as bullets shattered the air overhead.

By the time he’d leapt again, the Bad Lads were already clambering over the rail by means of the grappling hooks and cables. Vash frowned and swung his gun around to fire. Three of the Bad Lads who had gotten on deck dropped to the floor, groaning and holding their (non-fatal) injuries. There was a clang of the steering cabin door being fought with and Vash spun around just in time to see a couple of Bad Lads run and put the crew at gunpoint.

“Wolfwood what the hell are you doing over there!?”

“Well, well, well…”

Vash blanched. He knew that voice, it was a hard one to forget. It sent a phantom twinge of pain through a bullet hole scar on his side.

A mountain of a man stopped around the side of the steering cabin, his trademark sneer on his dark-skinned features. His white leather suit was covered in pulsing bands of colored neon, the huge guns mounted on his shoulders traced to look like eyes glaring into the dark. His thick dreadlocks were yanked back into a ponytail, his neon traced pistol was clutched in one hand, and his other hand was covering Wolfwood’s face, dragging him bodily across the deck. Brilliant Dynamites Neon stopped a good foot or so away from Vash and showed his shark teeth in a wide grin,

“If it isn’t Vash the Stampede, as I live an’ breathe. You’ve still got a firework flare aboutcha’, I could see it a mile away.”

“Let him go.” Vash said, his Colt aimed at Neon’s head even though everyone knew he wouldn’t shoot, “Please. Just let him go. You’re suffocating him.”

“This priest? He’s with you?” Neon raised an eyebrow, looking down at Wolfwood who’s struggles were weakening, his face turning blue, “He doesn’t have quite the flare that you do but I gotta respect his equipment. That was one badass weapon you had there, priest.” The bandit leader tossed the man to the deck floor.

Wolfwood gasped and choked for air, struggling to get up even as another Bad Lad pressed a gun into the back of his head. Neon had lost interest in him the second he’d let him go, his attention instantly back on Vash,

“Now Vash, I did say that the next time we met I’d kill you.”

“Really?” Vash pretended to think about it, scratching at his chin, “I seem to remember you saying something about how bandits couldn’t make a living anymore and you were going to retire…”

Neon let out a peel of ear-splittingly loud laughter, his gun never wavering from where it was aimed at Vash’s heart, “Haaahahahaha! You’ve still got that bite, Stampede, that’s hilarious.” Seriousness fell over his face again, the wide brim of his hat casting a dark shadow over his sharp features, “So. Are we doing this the easy way or the hard way?”

“I’d rather we didn’t do it either way.” Vash muttered, hunching his shoulders so that the curve of his hood cupped his face.

Neon snorted, “No way. We two are bright and burning sparks in the night. You don’t have quite the stature without your duster but I’ll still go trigger to trigger with you anyway.”

Vash groaned, swinging his gun back to rest against his shoulder, “So, what, the same deal as before? I beat you and you leave the bus alone?”

“You catch on fast,” The bandit leader smirked, dropping his gun as well, “That’s the ropes. You win, I leave. I win, I take anything and everything I want.”

“Vash,“ Wolfwood grunted hoarsely from the deck, “Don’t be stupid, y-you’re in no shape for a duel!”

“Shut up,” Neon kicked the priest in the head and Vash made a low growling noise in the back of his throat. Brilliant Dynamites Neon looked up at him sharply, “That true? You already roughed up and frayed at the edges? Your spark waverin’?”

“I’m well enough to beat you.” Vash said with a determined scowl, “Clear the deck. I want to get this over with and take a nap.”

Another round of boisterous laughter from Neon as he swept his hand around, sending the Bad Lads scrambling to clear space on the deck. Wolfwood kicked and struggled as they dragged him backwards out of the way. Vash met his gaze and shook his head. Wolfwood glared at him but subsided. This was stubborn Vash, this was the real Vash, the one behind that goofy mask of his. This was Vash fighting for everyone but himself. It wasn’t that the Plant had little regard for his own life, it was simply that he placed everyone else’s above his. Still, he wouldn’t dive into a situation he couldn’t get out of unless there was no choice. 

That being said, he was also a stubborn idiot who often acted before he thought.

But there was no stopping this fight now. It was unusual for duels to occur in this day and age, angry disputes settled by courts of law with lawyers and men with gavels and fancy degrees. Neon and his Bad Lads were the last of a dying breed; bandits that still roamed the wastes between cities and took what they wanted, veritable pirates of the land. Then again, Vash and Wolfwood were a part of that dying breed as well, if just from a different stock. Words and suits won more battles these days than guns did.

That didn’t stop Vash and Neon from facing each other across the deck, guns in their holsters, hands tense at their sides, ready to draw.

The Bad Lads leader withdrew a coin from his pocket and flipped it through his fingers. Vash’s eyes narrowed but he said nothing nor did he move. The wind tore at the pair of them, the Northern Lights snapped overhead, and the steamer bus plowed ever onwards.

Neon flipped the coin into the air.

It vanished into the dark sky overhead. For the barest breath of second it caught the glimmer of the lights overhead before plummeting into darkness again.

The _ting_ of it hitting the deck was almost lost in the roar of the engines.

Then they _moved_.

Wolfwood had seen Vash hold his own in many a fight but it always astonished him how quickly and how efficiently, the free Plant worked. He was smart, thinking up multiple plans on the fly, and he was quite possibly the fastest being on the entire planet. Neon was a powerhouse but Vash’s speed was unmatched.

The bandit leader had unleashed the massive guns mounted on his shoulders the second the coin had hit the deck. A barrage of heavy bullets tore through the air and through the railing of the deck, ripping it to pieces. But Vash had already moved. He was racing around Neon’s side, trying to duck into his blind spot. His Colt was already up and propped against his other arm, his sea-green eyes slits against the wind.

Neon turned to try and face him but Vash was too fast. He raced across the wooden deck, put on a burst of speed to try and get behind the bandit leader…and stumbled. His feet tangled and he went down hard, rolling across the floor. Like a cat always landing on its feet, though, he managed to catch himself, recovering in a crouch with his gun once again aimed at Neon.

But the light-traced bandit was ready for him and a shot from his pistol ricocheted off Vash’s gun, knocking it askew in his grip. Another sent it flying. Neon had a deadly good aim. Vash lunged for his Colt only to spin out of the way as another bullet slammed into the wooden deck. He scowled, dancing out of Neon’s way, ducked another shot, and bolted across the deck again.

“Like embers on a breeze!” Neon barked, swinging his glittering pistol around and firing at the red blur that was Vash the Stampede, “But I’ll catch you, Vash, don’t doubt I will! Embers go out in the brilliance of a greater light!”

“Maybe so!” Vash called back and there was a flutter of movement, the clicking whir of machinery, the cocking of a gun. The Plant was suddenly inches from Neon’s face, a gun barrel pressed under his chin, “But fireworks fade far to quickly to be remembered.”

Brilliant Dynamites Neon actually looked stunned. So did everyone else. No one had even seen Vash move and yet there he was. What was even stranger was that his Colt was lying several feet away.

The bandit leader looked long and hard at the free Plant and then, slowly, held up his hands in surrender, letting his pistol clatter to the floor, “Maybe that’s true, Stampede. But fireworks leave an afterimage, a bright line burned into the eyes and never to be forgotten.”

Vash stared at him a moment and then stepped back, dropping his arm to his side and shaking his head, “You and your poetic metaphors. I beat you fair and square. Take your men and get off the bus please.”

Neon jerked his head and the Bad Lads scrambled across the deck, hurrying back to the cables swaying out into the night. Vash watched them go carefully, the gun still in his hand. Although in the light of the Bloom Aurora, it was clearly not just a gun but a part of his fake arm, a mechanical attachment constructed in such a way that it contained a high powered gun inside it. Brilliant Dynamites Neon gave it a once over and then looked up at Vash again,

“Hey, Stampede.”

Vash turned to face him, wind pulling at his blond hair, loose from under the knit cap he’d lost at some point. He still looked fierce and defensive but there was a tiredness about him now, a sagging, a weight that hadn’t been there before the fight, “Yeah?”

“Did you really destroy Jenora Rock? And July?”

A hazy cold, as icy as the wind around them, seeped into Vash’s eyes, “I don’t know. I can’t remember. Did you…did you have family…? Did you know someone…?”

“Not important.” Neon answered gruffly, hefting his shoulders up and stomping over to the nearest cable. He swung a leg over and then paused, looking back at Vash, “Get some sleep, Vash, you look like shit.” His gaze darted over to Wolfwood who was slinging Cross Punisher back over his shoulder, “Get a little more flare, priest, and next time you an’ me can go trigger to trigger.”

And with that he was gone.

There were loud clangs as the grappling hooks detached from the deck and were reeled back to the off-roaders. Then the multi-colored neon lights sped away into the dark in wakes of snow, boisterous laughter bouncing after them. And the steamer bus was once again alone in the dark and the cold.

Vash’s shoulders drooped and he sighed heavily, breath whipped away by the wind. His mechanical arm snapped and whirred and the gun unfolded itself, slotting back into place inside his arm, his hand snapping into place at his wrist again. He rolled his shoulder, shook out his hands, and pushed his hair out of his face. Then he moved across the deck and picked up his gun.

“Ey, Needle Noggin, you okay?” Wolfwood was leaning against the side of the steering cabin, steadfastly ignoring the grateful (if wary) looks of the crewmen on the other side of the glass.

Vash kept his back to the priest for a while, staring out into the snow and perhaps up that Aurora, “Yeah. Just tired. It’s been a while since I was in a shootout like that. Neon’s got a lot of energy.”

“So do you.”

“Maybe.”

There was silence for a moment and then Vash turned around, harassed and tired, his goofy mask clicking back into place as easily as it had fallen off,

“When we get back to December will you buy me donuts?”

Wolfwood didn’t know if he was grateful to have Vash back or if he should punch him.


	12. Fragile

_“My God, this is a hell of a job. I have no trouble with my enemies. I can take care of my enemies all right. But my damn friends, my goddamn friends. They’re the ones that keep me walking the floor nights.” - Warren G. Harding_

\-----

The arrival at December was harried and, in Wolfwood’s professional opinion, annoying. He practically had to smuggle Vash off the steamer bus and hide him from the authorities who had by now heard the reports of the crew members and passengers and were searching for any sign of Vash.

But this wasn’t his first rodeo and he slipped away with Vash without anyone noticing. Indeed most people seemed to think that Vash had jumped ship somewhere out in the snow and there would be no finding him now. Both the priest and the Plant were content to let them believe that. But just for caution’s sake, he and Vash took the back way into the apartment building, climbed the stairs to the third floor, and gratefully entered Wolfwood’s condo without any undue harassment.

Vash completely forgot about hanging his borrowed winter coat up when he saw his leather duster in Wolfwood’s closest. He snagged it off the hanger, threw it over his shoulders, and fell onto the couch, wrapping himself in the faded leather with gleeful noises. Wolfwood rolled his eyes and set about unpacking his things. When he moved into the kitchen, Vash poked his head over the arm of the couch,

“Were you really looking for me for six months straight?”

“I came back here every once in a while,” The priest replied, pulling the cupboard open and digging for a cutting board, “And I still had work from my employers to see to every once in a while.”

“What about the Tagger girls? Are they still here?”

“Big girl is. But the short one, she went back to the main office. Apparently Millie—the tall one—she’s working out of the branch office here now. I guess it was to keep an eye out for you, if you ever came back his way.”

“Ah.” Vash slipped back down on the couch, rolling over so that he was sitting upright, “Well, at least I don’t have to worry about them trying to chase me down every day.”

Wolfwood made a noncommittal noise and continued to slice up some tomatoes. He heard the holoscreen in the sitting room buzz to life, heard the Plant on the couch start muttering and flipping through channels, and tuned it all out as he kept preparing food. There were things he needed to think about, thoughts he needed to organize, things he’d meant to put together on the steamer bus but hadn’t amongst all the chaos. In his head, it had seemed simple to confront the Plant about everything that had happened. But now, back in December where it was comfortable and warm and safe, it was harder to get the words to form, harder to break the wall of comfort that Vash had locked himself behind.

Especially with what he’d learned since Jenora Rock.

The priest sucked in a heavy breath, stacked the sandwiches he’d made on a plate, hefted up a box of (slightly stale) donuts from a couple weeks ago, and carried it all into the sitting room to set them on the coffee table. Vash was curled on the couch, hunched in his trademark red coat, watching a news report on Brilliant Dynamites Neon’s attack on the steamer bus. His gaze only left the holoscreen to eye the donuts; he snatched up three in one hand and two sandwiches in the other before looking back at the report.

“Vash.” Wolfwood said, leaning forward and picking up his own sandwich, “We need to talk.”

“‘Bout what?” The free Plant asked without looking at him.

“About Jenora Rock.”

“What’s to talk about?” Vash’s voice had lost it’s upbeat humor even though he was still staring fixedly at the holoscreen.

“You knew what was going to happen. Or at least, you knew _something_ was going to happen. Who was there? Who did you tell us to get away from? And what was that light? What _happened_ , Vash?”

Vash shrugged, finishing off one sandwich and starting in on the other, “You were there, you saw.”

Wolfwood’s expression darkened, “You’re not ducking out of this one. You owe me an explanation and you owe it to me big time. Answer me. Right. Now. What happened at Jenora Rock?”

“I don’t know!” Vash shouted. His features were contorted, somewhere between anger and distress, “I don’t remember!”

“Bullshit.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“You _owe me_ , Vash!”

“IF I TOLD YOU, IT COULD GET YOU KILLED!”

Silence.

Wolfwood stared at Vash. The Plant glared at the floor. The news report said that no one had been harmed.

“What do you mean?” Wolfwood’s voice was a careful murmur. There was a sensation in his veins, a tingling spark, the feeling he got before a fire fight started, “Do this have something to do with Lost July? With your missing arm?”

Vash didn’t move but Wolfwood had known the free Plant long enough to recognize when he’d hit a nerve. The way the Plant’s hands twitched and his eyes narrowed ever so slightly told him that much. It also told him that he had guessed right and Vash was indeed hiding things from him. The priest’s jaw clenched and his frown deepened,

“Now listen here, Vash the Stampede. Maybe telling me what’s going on would put me in danger but that’s nothing I can’t handle.” Vash whipped his head around and opened his mouth to argue but Wolfwood held his hand up, stopping him, “But if it makes you uncomfortable I’m not going to force you. However, _not_ giving me any details at all could possibly put me in even more danger. So give me something to go off of so I know what I’m getting myself into.”

“Getting yourself into?” Vash repeated, brow furrowing, “Wolfwood, this isn’t your business. It’s my problem and other people don’t need to be involved.”

“You live with me, Spiky.” Wolfwood shot back, “And even when you don’t, you’re still my friend.” It might have been the first time he’d ever said it out loud, “You’re my friend and I want to make sure you don’t do anything stupid. The same goes for Livio, that’s why he took you in without question. We’re your friends, Vash. And it’s time you start filling in some of these details you seem so damn set on shouldering yourself.”

Somewhere during that speech, Vash had turned away, unable to look Wolfwood in the eye. The priest’s words made sense and both of them knew it. But Vash had never been good at talking. Oh, he could carry on a conversation well and fine when he wanted to as long as it wasn’t about him. Anytime talk steered in his direction, he rebuffed it or managed to slip away, he always got out of it. But Wolfwood kept pressing,

“Vash, there’s something else you—“

“I’m tired.” The Plant interrupted stiffly, rising to his feet, “I’m going to sleep. On the bed. You can’t stop me.” He paused, frowning, and then cupped his hands around the three donuts he’d taken, “And these are coming with me.” Then he darted around the couch and down the side hall by the kitchen. The door to the usually vacant room slammed shut and that was the end of it.

Wolfwood swore and punched his fist into the arm rest a couple of times. It didn’t make him feel any better. Getting Vash to open up was as easy as chopping down a tree with your bare hands. You’d be bruised and bloody and exhausted before you managed to do it.

But Wolfwood couldn’t let this one go. Not this time, not after Jenora Rock and certainly not after the way Vash had reacted when the priest had pressed him for details. He’d get some kind of answer out of him even if it meant picking at Vash’s wall with his fingernails, he’d do it. Because he sensed something dangerous going on and it put him on edge.

The priest flicked the holoscreen off and moved to head to his own room. He turned back halfway down the hall, retrieved Cross Punisher from his bag, and ducked into his bedroom. A second later he came back out and checked the latches on the doors and windows.

Call him paranoid but Wolfwood smelled a storm coming and it wasn’t one that would be weathered easily.

The path of a typhoon left wreckage in its wake, sure. But it also stirred the air enough to create more storms in its wake.

-o-o-o-o-

“Bernardelli Tracking Association Main Office. This is Meryl Strife speaking, how can I help you? … M-Millie? Millie! Wait, slow down! What did you say? You _what_!? Are you sure!? … Yes! Yes, I’ll be right there! Okay, see you soon, Millie!”

Meryl slammed her office phone down and leapt to her feet. She swept everything she’d need into her bag, swung her coat on, and headed for the door. One of her coworkers nearly ran into her as she made a beeline for the exit,

“Whoa! Meryl, hun, where’s the fire?”

“I’m going to December! Something’s come up!”

“December? But isn’t that—“

“Tell the boss I’ll be back when I can! I’ve got a train to catch!”

“But Meryl—!”

“Byyeee!”

-o-o-o-o-

Vash was dozing on the couch a day after his confrontation with Wolfwood. Or he might have been pretending to doze, it was hard to tell. He’d been steadfastly ignoring Wolfwood’s presence for the most part, only answering when he absolutely had to. Yet despite his cold shoulder, he hadn’t left the condo or December at all, which to Wolfwood suggested that Vash was still teetering on a precipice he wasn’t sure he could back away from and needed the company of someone to help him stay steady. And Wolfwood, despite how annoyed he might have been at Vash, was willing to help.

The priest was currently in his arm chair, scrolling though his phone and trading words with Livio. The man had never been good at keeping in touch and letting other know what he was up to, it was part of his wary and somewhat quiet nature. But then again, Wolfwood wasn’t any good at it either. But Livio had instigated the texting conversation by asking if Vash was okay (he’d heard about the incident with the Bad Lads) and Wolfwood had told him that the free Plant was being his usual, stubborn, asshole-ish self and the conversation had carried on from there.

“Hey, Vash, Livio says he’s gonna be moving out of the shit town soon.” Wolfwood said idly, testing to see if the Plant was really awake or not.

“Mh.” Vash grunted. He was curled on his side on the couch, facing the cushions, his back to Wolfwood. He was wearing his red coat again.

“I’ll tell him you say hi.”

“Mm.”

“He’s got a van, you know. Idiot’s been living out of it like a hippy.”

“Hm.”

“I don’t know why he doesn’t get better jobs, it’s not like he’s unskilled at—“

A knock at the door cut him off and Wolfwood looked around with a slight frown. He hadn’t told anyone they were back, not even Millie who he usually dropped a line to when he came back to December. So who in the world could possibly be knocking on his door?

He glanced at Vash but the free Plant hadn’t moved an inch, content to pretend that nothing but the couch cushions existed in his sulking state. Wolfwood rolled his eyes and heaved himself out of his chair, stowing his phone in his pocket and tugging out his pistol instead. His hackles were still raised and he wasn’t taking any chances. But a glance out the peephole told him he needn’t have worried. Stowing the gun away, he unlatched the door and pulled it up to a smiling Millie.

“Hey, big girl, how’d you know I was home?”

“Oh, well, I heard some yelling the other day and I figured it had to be you and. Um. Did you…did you find Mister Vash?” She fidgeted nervously and Wolfwood leaned against the doorframe, running a hand through his hair.

“Yeah, I found him. But you leave him alone, you hear. He’s in no shape to go running about and—“

“I knew it!” Meryl suddenly exploded out from behind Millie. She rushed past Wolfwood into the condo and the priest whirled around to follow her, gun in his hand before he’d even thought about it. He dashed after her into the sitting room, ignoring Millie as she sighed and followed them in and shut the door behind her.

“Hey! What the hell, lady!? Get out!” Wolfwood snarled, waving his gun at Meryl, “You can’t be in here! Leave before I—HEY GET THE HELL AWAY FROM HIM!”

“Vash the Stampede!” Meryl shouted over Wolfwood’s accusations, “I need to talk to you!”

Vash had been in the process of leaping over the couch when Meryl shouted at him. He froze, comically straddling the back of the couch with a surprised expression on his face. He eyed Meryl, who was standing defiantly with her hands on her hips, then glanced at Wolfwood who was still furiously brandishing his gun, then at Millie who was smiling nervously, and then back at Meryl.

“Talk to me?” He asked cautiously, still leaning towards vaulting over the couch, “About…what?”

“About…about a lot of things.” Meryl seemed to lose some of her steam. Her arms dropped to her sides, a softness coming across her features, “About what happened with the Nebraskas and at…the Facility. And other things.”

Vash drew away at the mention of Jenora Rock and the movement unbalanced him. He flailed, tried to catch himself, and toppled back onto the couch cushions in a whirl of red and long limbs. Meryl jumped back and Wolfwood pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to fight off a headache that wanted to crawl into his skull.

“Mister Vash, we promise we don’t want to hurt you or anything,” Millie said in a small voice and Vash peered up at her from under the folds of his great leather duster as he untangled himself from it, “We just want to talk to you. See, everyone says you’re this terrible person who breaks everyone else’s things but I just don’t think that’s true. You seem like a nice guy with a big heart and I think all those stories about you destroying cities is a bunch of dirty lies!”

“I’m with Millie on this,” Meryl nodded in affirmation, “I know we haven’t known each other very long but,” She fidgeted, swallowing pride, “But you saved those people at the cafe even though it put your own life at risk. And you’re not like any of the other stray Plants we’ve met. And I just wanted to ask you why? Why do you help people if so much trouble and horribleness follows you around? You can’t be as destructive as everyone says, you just can’t be!”

Vash was staring at the two women in something like shock. Woflwood snorted and stowed his gun away with a shake of his head. That was the same look Vash had given Wolfwood when the priest had the Vash could share a condo with him in December. Surprise that someone wanted to help him, shock that someone had taken a look beyond his name and his coat, and not a little bit of love for it, he thought. There weren’t a lot of people who knew the real Vash but that number was still bigger than the number of people who were his friends. He might just have made two new ones right there.

“There is one other thing…” Meryl said slowly. She shot a glance at Wolfwood who frowned at her curiously, “I found out about this about a month after the Jenora Rock incident.” She reached into her pocket and drew out a folded piece of paper.

The storm that Wolfwood had been sensing seemed to swell at the edge of his mind. His hackles rose. Danger was close, far too close.

“It’s a wanted ad.”

Shit. Shit, shit, shit, _no_. Vash wasn’t ready for this, Vash wouldn’t want to know this, Vash _couldn’t_ know this.

“It’s…it’s a bounty. For you.” Meryl held the paper out to Vash.

The free Plant gaped at her and then shook himself, taking the paper. But he didn’t look at it yet, a smirk playing across his features like he knew someone was pulling his leg, “That’s a joke, right? This is a joke. The government won’t put a bounty on me; they call me a natural disaster, like a hurricane, say you can’t put a price on it. They said I’m too dangerous, heheh. What a joke, right?”

But Meryl’s face was serious and Millie looked almost fearful, “It’s not…it’s not from the government, Vash.”

The smile slowly slipped off the free Plant’s face and he finally looked down at the paper in his hands.

His eyes slowly widened as they read the words in the ad. The color drained from his face, his hands started to shake, and his breaths came sharper, quicker. He looked like he was about to be sick.

“M-mister Vash…?” Millie ventured carefully.

“Needle Noggin, hey, you all right?” Wolfwood moved to lay his hand on Vash’s shoulder but the Plant jerked away. Vash shook his head, panic wild in his eyes, and leapt to his feet. He blew out of the room and out the condo door before anyone could begin to catch him.

The paper fluttered to the couch and, even in his panic over where Vash had gone, Wolfwood couldn’t help but glance at it.

_$60 MILLION FOR THE CAPTURE OF VASH THE STAMPEDE_

_WANTED ALIVE AND RELATIVELY UNHARMED_

_UPON CAPTURE, CALL ###-###-###_

The ad had been posted by the Gung-Ho Guns.

 


	13. The Wild Hunt Begins

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I honestly forget about this a lot so sorry I never update it. I have a hard time writing it. Not a lot of stimuli.

_“I want to see you shoot the way you shout.” - Theodore Roosevelt_

\-----

Vash didn’t quite remember running out of the condo. All he remembered were those words on the paper in his hands and how they had sent ice into his stomach and panic into his brain. He remembered that the room had felt suffocating and he’d had to get out, get out, _get out_!

So he’d run.

He was very good at running.

That’s why they were chasing him in the first place. Because he’d run.

Only it wasn’t so much as _they_ were chasing as _he_ was chasing him.

Vash felt sick to his stomach and leaned against an alley wall, panting, his insides churning. He didn’t even realize he’d been running down the street. He couldn’t afford this blind panic, it was sloppy and it was dangerous and it left him vulnerable.

_“Get a hold of yourself, Vash! You’re being pathetic!”_

Lightning bolts of ice shocked down his spine and Vash pressed his forehead against the rough brick of the wall, trying to ground himself. His head hurt, there were memories buried in the sludge of regret and self-loathing that were struggling to the surface and he wanted nothing to do with them. Worse still, the black voids in his memories where July and Jenora Rock should have been—icy mouths full of fear and sickness—were trying to drag him down into their dark depths.

He sucked in a breath, tasting the chill air of post-rainy season, and then another. He let the sensations of his senses sweep over him, grounding him in reality rather than his memories. The smell of the city, the crisp chill biting at his exposed skin, the familiar weight of his duster on his shoulders and his Colt at his hip, the sound of traffic, voices in the distance, the faint tingle of Plant speak at the very edges of his mind, and—

Vash snapped his head up and glared down the alley, his hand resting on the butt of his gun. He wasn’t alone anymore. There was a massive form standing near the mouth at the other end of the alley, awkwardly bulky and jutting in places that didn’t seem human. Vash could feel eyes on him, even if he couldn’t see their face, backlit and cast in shadows as they were.

“What do you want?” There was something hostile about their stance that Vash didn’t like, something that put him on guard.

“You’re Vash the Stampede?” The person’s voice was gravelly, rough, and deep. Vash could smell gunpowder and old blood on them, even from this distance.

“Who’s asking?”

A dark chuckle, triumphant, smug, “I am called Monev the Gale and I was sent to search December’s streets for you. It took a couple of days but here you are.”

“I don’t think we’ve met but you seem to know me.” Vash said, moving away from the wall, his hand still tight on his gun, “Who sent you?”

“I’ve heard so many stories about the Legendary Ace Gunman, the Humanoid Typhoon.” Monev’s voice was a grin, a sickly one that Vash didn’t like, “You’re just like he described, heheheh…”

The pieces put themselves together and Vash felt ill. He swallowed past the sick lump in his throat, “You’re with the Gung-Ho Guns.”

“Bingo! Give the Plant a cookie!” Monev moved forward and his form became more clear. There were guns and weapons strapped over his back and mounted to his shoulders. There was a big machine gun like weapon hooked on his arm. He was a walking weapons locker, an arsenal, an army all on is own.

All of the Gung-Ho Guns were like that in some way or another.

“What are you doing here? Get out of this city!” Vash snapped, pulling his gun out of its holster. He didn’t aim it at Monev, just let it hang at his side, still a deadly threat all the same.

“No can do, _diablo_.” Monev sneered, levering up his massive gun and aiming it at the free Plant, “I have explicit instructions to bring you back alive and with as little damage as possible. The boss was very clear about that. No permanent damage.”

“You mean Knives.” Vash hissed through clenched teeth, grip tightening on his gun, making it creak, “Where is he? Where is Knives!? Tell me!”

“I could take you to him.”

“I’ll meet him on _my_ terms. Not on his.”

Monev shrugged his massive shoulders, “Then we’ll be doing this the hard way.”

The click was all the warning Vash got.

A hail storm of bullets riddled down the alleyway but Vash was already moving. He rushed Monev, ducking under his fire, and getting right into his face. The shock was clear, even through the tinted face mask the Gale wore, and had it been anyone else Vash might have smirked. But this was a Gung-Ho Gun and they were nothing to laugh at. He braced his hand on Monev’s shoulder, pushed himself off the ground, and vaulted over the massive man, hitting him in the head with the toe of his boot as he went.

Monev stumbled, his bullets flying wild and shattering the brick walls as they tore across the alley. Vash spun as he landed, gun swinging around and firing, all in a single, fluid movement. His shot skidded across one of the straps holding Monev’s arm gun in place, fraying the thick material. But before he could get another shot off, Monev’s swung around, the massive gun on his arm smashing into Vash’s side and sending him slamming into the alley wall. The Plant choked as his head knocked against the brick, the blow sending him tripping away from the Gung-Ho Gun.

This alley was too narrow, there wasn’t room to properly defend himself. He had to get out, had to find a bigger space. A bigger space preferably empty of any one else. Not an easy task in a city the size of December.

-o-o-o-o-

“Do you have any idea what you’ve _done_!?”

“I didn’t—“

“I told you— _I told you_ —to leave him the hell alone! That fucking want ad is the last thing he needed to know about right now!”

“Mister Priest—“

“It took me _three days_ to convince him to come back! Three days! He was settling down! He was finding his feet again! And then you come barging in with no regard for his feelings whatsoever! He’s not just Vash the Stampede, he’s not just some stray Plant for you to hunt down, you don’t understand—“

“I would if you just told me!” Meryl shouted over Wolfwood’s tirade. The priest had been shouting since Vash had run out the door; all his frustrations and worries finally finding an outlet on this unwitting Tagger woman.

“Mister Wolfwood, please,” Millie said gently, “We didn’t mean to cause any harm.”

“Millie’s right,” Meryl said fiercely, her arms crossed, her eyes on fire. Despite her stubborn scowl, there was a dark worry about her, one that said she was confused and scared about what had just happened, “I don’t know what I did and I don’t know why Vash ran off and I don’t know why you’re yelling at me! This doesn’t solve anything. Just tell me what I did wrong and I’ll fix this.”

Wolfwood hesitated, chewing on his lip, wishing for a cigarette. He didn’t want to say too much and cross the line. As much damage as this had probably done, Vash was still his friend and spilling the Plant’s secrets to others was not something Wolfwood would ever willingly do if he could help it. But Meryl and Millie wanted to know, not out of curiosity but because they wanted to help and to understand.

The priest sighed and looked away, “Vash isn’t as stable as he looks. I spent three years…patching him up. He’s been through a lot. Actually, to tell you the truth, I don’t know all the details myself. But the Gung-Ho Guns are bad news for him. Usually he’ll just flinch or clam up or leave the room altogether if they’re mentioned. But coming back from whatever happened at Jenora Rock,” Wolfwood shook his head, suddenly anxious to go out and find the Plant, “He was, I dunno, unbalanced. Scared. Whatever happened it put him on the edge and he was just starting to back away when you thrust that want ad in his face.” He sent a hard look at Meryl, not accusatory, just wanting her to understand the level of damage she’d done, “I would have told him eventually, when he was ready. He didn’t even want to talk to me about what happened six months ago yet.”

“You make him sound so breakable,” Meryl was frowning, half out of concern and half out of trying to put together what she had just learned with the Vash she knew, “But he’s the Humanoid Typhoon, an Ace Gunman. He’s classified as a localized, human disaster and there are evacuation order established for any area where there’s a confirmed sighting of him. I just…I can’t understand it…”

“It sounds like you’re talking about two different people, Mister Wolfwood.” Millie spoke up, “Vash seems so nice and he’s got such a big heart. How can he be scared and—and unbalanced like you say?”

“You live with him for almost six years and you start to notice things,” Wolfwood responded darkly, “Like the difference between his mask and who he really is. Vash doesn’t let a lot of people get close. It’s because he’d rather see them smile than pity him for who he was and is.” The priest waved a hand through the air, dismissing the words, “It doesn’t matter. What matters right now is that we need to find him before he does—“

The holoscreen on the wall came to life with a warning blare and began flashing a bright yellow exclamation point on a red background. An important sounding voice shouted into the room,

“ _ATTENTION CITIZENS OF DECEMBER. THIS IS AN EMERGENCY BROADCAST. AN IMMEDIATE EVACUATION OF THE MERCHANT DISTRICT HAS BEEN ORDERED. ALL OTHER RESIDENTS ARE TO REMAIN INDOORS. VASH THE STAMPEDE HAS BEEN SIGHTED. I REPEAT; THE HUMANOID TYPHOON HAS BEEN SIGHTED IN DECEMBER! THIS IS AN EMERGENCY BROADCAST. AN IMMEDIATE EVACUATION OF THE…”_

“—something stupid.” Wolfwood finished with a groan.

-o-o-o-o-

Vash was running full tilt through the streets of December’s Merchant District, the evacuation order blaring in his ears. He had been shouting and waving his gun around  to clear the streets but he was, for once, grateful for the announcement doing his job for him. The citizens of December were fleeing for their lives and the streets were mostly empty by now but still Vash didn’t want to confront the Gung-Ho Gun who was still hot on his heels. And firing hot lead while he was at it. 

Vash yelped as he heard a shot whistle by his ear. Running kept Monev from using his bigger guns but Vash could only keep going for so long. Monev was one of the Guns and he wouldn’t stop chasing Vash. He was trained to never stop until his objective had been met and the Gung-Ho Guns were fiercely loyal to their master.

Or maybe it fear that drove them, not loyalty.

Either way, Vash would have to confront Monev the Gale sooner or later or risk being run down by sheer lack of stamina. 

The free Plant spun around a corner and jumped a car that was slamming its brakes on to avoid hitting the crazy man in a red coat who had just run into the street. Vash launched himself off the hood, ran across the roof, and skidded down the back of the car to keep racing down the street. The firing of of a heavy duty gun made him turn just in time to see the car he’d jumped be ripped through by bullets and go spinning onto the sidewalk and smash into a building.

Monev was standing on the other side of the wreckage with one of his massive weapons raised, aimed at Vash, “The more you run, the more casualties there will be!” He shouted over the alarm, “And they’ll be on your head, Vash the Stampede!”

Vash felt anger swell hot in the pit of his stomach and he swung up his gun and fired. But Monev was already moving, firing at Vash in return. The bullets were more like heavy artillery shells that tore through the air and ripped great chunks from the pavement. Vash dodged, running across the street to find some cover. A shell impacting upon the ground behind him sent him flying. He rolled with the force of it, finding his feet again and leaping over a toppled street sign. He swung his gun around and fired, spinning on his heel. It sounded like one shot but three bullets cracked into Monev’s face plate and another ripped through the strap supporting his arm gun. The assassin stumbled, his arm gun sliding from its balanced place and nearly toppling him to the ground. Vash took advantage of this momentary distraction to dive behind a delivery truck and fumble with the revolving chamber on his Colt.

His hands were shaking and it was difficult to get the bullets in the chambers.

This was not like his duel with Brilliant Dynamites Neon.

Neon killed, yes, but only to induce fear or get his way.

Monev the Gale was killing anyone in his way for the simple thrill of it. Or just because he could.

Vash hadn’t had a confrontation like this in…he didn’t know how long.

“VASH THE STAMPEDE!” Monev shouted, “WHERE ARE YOU HIDING YOU COWARDLY LITTLE SHIT!?” There was a fearsome bang and a shivering of something collapsing in on itself, a burst of mortar dust and bricks.

From his hiding spot, Vash flinched, trying to tell himself that this part of the city was already evacuated and no one had been in that building. But he didn’t know that for sure. Monev had killed six people and injured at least ten others; Vash had kept count. He was determined not to add anymore to that number.

“The boss was pretty vague on what I could do to capture you and bring you back,” Monev was calling. Another round fired, another wall collapsed somewhere. Vash missed sliding the bullet into the chamber and closed his eyes, taking a deep breath to try and calm himself,

“I will tear down this whole city if that’s what it takes to find you, Plant. I don’t care what it takes. I was promised a substantial reward for bringing you back and I’m gonna collect!” Another bang, another tremor, “Twenty years training in hell and all to catch a sniveling baby coward! Pathetic!”

Vash peered around the corner of the van. Monev was stomping down the street, his broken arm gun abandoned, some sort of launcher propped on his shoulder and a wake of destruction behind him. The Plant hissed between his clenched teeth, tensed, and then rolled out from behind the van, swinging up his Colt and firing again. The bullet lodged into Monev’s leg and he let out a snarl of pain, stumbling down to one knee. Vash leveled his gun for another shot when Monev the Gale sneered, lifted his own launcher, and fired.

At the van.

Vash let out a cry and pushed himself away but the explosion still hit him from behind with tremendous force. He felt the heat singe the back of his neck as he was sent tumbling head over heels across the street. The pavement scratched and bit into his skin, his already bruised head got another lump for its troubles, and his duster got tangled in his legs. A fire hydrant T-boning him in the back stopped his progress and jarred his spine.

Bleeding, bruised, and disoriented, Vash struggled to find his feet. He half-rose, collapsed, and grabbed the edge of the fire hydrant to haul himself back up again. He still hadn’t bounced back from Jenora Rock, he could feel the weakness in his very bones. Weak, useless, sloppy. This was no way to fight, no way to survive. He should have known better, he should have known that he couldn’t keep running like he had been. Sooner or later, he knew Knives and his gang would catch up and he’d have to show his teeth. He had just pretended that it would never happen.

A shadow fell across him and he looked up, squinting through the blood dripping down his face to see Monev leering over him. The big assassin grinned and grabbed a fistful of Vash’s shirt and coat, hauling him off the ground with ease.

“That wasn’t as much fun as I thought it would be,” The Gale sneered, “You’re a fast little shit but a pathetic one. I thought you’d be like _him_.”

Sparks turned to a blaze and Vash’s anger rekindled, “Don’t you dare…!” He spat, blood sticky in his mouth, iron heating on his tongue, “Don’t you _ever_ compare me to him! DON’T YOU EVER! I AM NOTHING LIKE HIM!”

The butt of his Colt, still tight in his hand, slammed into Monev’s face shield and sent it splintering. The Gung-Ho Gun dropped Vash in surprise, stumbling backwards and swatting thick pieces of glass out of his face.

Vash hit the ground hard, got his feet under him, and launched himself at Monev with a ferocious snarl. He swung his leg up, heel of his boot smashing into the assassin’s face. Monev fell to the ground with a grunt of pain and Vash was on him in an instant, rage etched in hard lines across his features, the barrel of the Colt pressed against Monev’s eye.

The two stared at one another. Monev with fear evident in his eye and Vash seething in an uncharacteristic rage.

For a long moment, it seemed like the Plant would pull the trigger.

But something came over him.

His hand started shaking, the gun quivering against Monev’s skin, and the Plant braced it with his other hand. But that one was shaking too. His entire body was trembling.

He yanked the gun away from the Gung-Ho Gun, yanked his entire body away, and fell to the ground with a gasp, shivering on the pavement. Tears were hot in his eyes, tears he fought hard to keep in check as he wrapped himself around his gun, blood still oozing from his injuries.

Monev pushed himself laboriously to his feet, “Why the hell…didn’t you shoot me?”

“Get out.” Vash hissed and even though his voice was shaking there was such venom in it that Monev flinched, “Get out and if I ever see you again I’ll make you wish I’d shot you.”

The Gung-Ho Gun glared at him for a moment, but more out a newly kindled fear than actual rage. Then, slowly, he got to his feet, weapons clanking as he moved. He limped around to stand over Vash who was still curled on the ground,

“You told me not to compare the two of you. But after that, how can I not.” The great man reached into a pocket and pulled something out, tossing it to the ground in front of Vash, “He wanted me to give that to you. And to give you a warning. He said that if you’re not going to come back willingly then he’ll have to force you to see the error of your ways. I was just the first. There are many more of me.”

Whether Vash had heard him at all was up to debate. He’d picked up what Monev had tossed to him and the second he’d laid eyes on it, he’d gone ridged. The same wild panic that had entered his gaze when he’d seen the want ad was there again. This time it was darker, deeper, something disgusting, a film of grime over usually clear sea-green.

Without even a glance at Monev the Gale, the Plant scrambled to his feet and took off running down the street. He disappeared down an alley and was gone.

-o-o-o-o-

“Did…did Vash actually do all this…?”

Meryl was pressed against the window of Wolfwood’s jeep, staring out at the destroyed streets of December in fearful shock. Wolfwood glanced at her, carefully navigating his way around rubble and holes, chewing anxiously at the cigarette in his mouth.

“Nah. This probably wasn’t from Vash directly. Whoever was chasing him probably did this. Contrary to popular belief, most of the destruction that follows him around is from other people trying to do him in.”

“But why does he get into so much trouble?” Millie asked, looking out another window from the back seats, “He’s such a nice guy. Does he say mean things about people’s mothers?”

Wolfwood snorted, half out of amusement and half out of dismissal, “No. He’s just an idiot who sticks his nose where it doesn’t belong and pisses everyone off. Any sign of him yet?”

“Nothing,” Meryl shook her head, “I can’t believe this…even after Jenora Rock, I still can’t believe that he causes these things to happen. He’s just a Plant. How does—“

“Mister Wolfwood!” Millie cried suddenly, “Mister Wolfwood, stop! I think I see someone down that alley!”

Wolfwood slammed the jeep into park and leapt out, Cross Punisher swinging over his shoulder. The two Tagger women followed him as he raced down the alleyway Millie had pointed to. Sure enough, limping down the narrow, shadowed walk, was a tall figure in a long red coat.

“Vash!” The priest called, “Vash! What the hell are you doing!?”

The Plant stopped, turned to look at them, wobbled, and then collapsed against the wall.

“Vash!”

“Mister Vash!”

“Needle Noggin!”

Wolfwood slung the Plant’s arm over his shoulder, hauling him to his feet and half dragging, half walking him back to the jeep. There was a bit of a hassle getting Vash into the vehicle and trying to orient him in the back so that he was laying cross the seat and Wolfwood was braced against the two front seats so he could tend to the Plant’s injuries. Meryl took the driver’s seat and Millie the passanger’s and the jeep pulled away from the destruction once again left in the wake of the Humanoid Typhoon, Vash the Stampede.


	14. There Once Were Better Days

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Nothing fixes a thing so intensely in the memory as the wish to forget it." - Michel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What the actual fuck I'm updating this fic I haven't touched in like three years what madness is this!?  
> There's actually a few very good reasons why this fic vanished off the face of the planet for a while but I'll put that all down at the notes below if you're really, truly interested in what happened. The TL;DR of it is my life went to shit really fast and really badly.  
> I had a handful of chapters finished and just waiting to be uploaded but I never did it. So we'll see where this goes.

It’s hot here.

A thick, humid kind of hot that makes the air sticky. It smells like metal and computers but he doesn’t mind that. He likes it here. There’s solitude here, no one comes up to the observation platforms so he has the whole space to himself. He likes to sit here and watch.

“Here again, huh, Vash?”

He didn’t even hear her come up the stairs. She takes a seat on the couch beside him and offers a smile. He smiles back and then returns his gaze to the look beyond the glass of the platform. His legs swing in the air; his feet can’t touch the ground.

“What are you doing up here by yourself? Where’s Knives?”

“He’s reading,” He says in a low voice, “I wanted to come up here by myself. I like it up here. I can listen to the Plant.”

They sit quietly together for a long while and then he says,

“Does it make you sad, Rem?”

“What?”

“The Plants? They’re all stuck in their Bulbs. They can’t feel the sun or the rain, they don’t get soft beds or hugs. They can’t even have donuts! Does that…does that make you sad?”

She hums, looking out at the Bulbs on the other side of the glass, thinking about it, “Yes, a little bit. But you know what, without them we wouldn’t have any of those things either.” She puts her chin in her hand, propping her elbow on her knee, “I feel that we don’t treat Plants the way they should be treated; not as objects but as people. And I feel bad that I can’t do more for them. But I have you and Knives,” She looks at him, smiling, and he has to smile back, “So it’s not all bad.”

“We won’t go anywhere!” He promises, childish optimism, a lightness in his heart, “I promise, Rem! I’m right next to you! I won’t leave you alone!”

She laughs and it makes his heart sing.

-0-0-0-0-

It was warm.

A cozy, comfortable warm. There was a rumbling, a tremor in his frame, occasionally bumps. Something stiff but soft at his back. The smell of plastic and metal, oil and grease. A woman’s perfume. Food. And cigarette smoke.

Vash cracked his eyes open and saw the ceiling of Woflwood’s jeep. He knew it was Wolfwood’ because there was a stain on the fabric from when he’d smashed his donut into it once on accident.

Said priest’s face suddenly leaned over the back of the seat and looked vaguely surprised to see his eyes open, “Well, hey, Vash, nice to see you awake. Honestly didn’t expect you to wake up for a while, you had a couple of nasty bumps on your head.”

“Where are we…?” Vash grunted, pushing himself into a sitting position. He had been laying in the back seat of the jeep and Wolfwood was in the trunk area, surrounded by a few suitcases and a lot of shopping bags and, of course, his trust gun. The Plant was a little shocked to see the two Tagger girls sitting up front, the shorter one at the wheel.

“About twenty miles from December by now.” Wolfwood responded, folding his arms on the back of the seat and putting his head on them.

“Why?”

“Because there was no way you could stay there,” Meryl answered, “They were directly hunting for you, it was too dangerous for you to be anywhere near December. So we packed what we could, found you, and left. And that’s that.”

“Aren’t you going to get into trouble for this…?” Vash asked with genuine worry.

“Yeah, probably!” Millie said with a cheerful smile in the Plant’s direction, “But that’s all right! Helping a friend is more important!”

Vash blinked in surprise and smiled weakly back at her. A tap on the shoulder made him turn to face Wolfwood again. The priest gestured and the Plant shuffled aside to allow him to clamber over the back and settle into a seat himself.

“Before we get all cheery about evading capture,” He muttered darkly, reaching into a pocket, “I need to ask you about this, Vash.” He withdrew his hand and held it out to Vash.

Resting in his palm was a small plastic bag with four little bright green pills inside.

Vash flinched and looked away, shame and distress written on every angle.

“I didn’t take any.” He murmured hoarsely.

“I can see that.” Wolfwood growled, “But that’s not the point. The point is that you had them _in your pocket_. How long were you carrying these around!?”

“I wasn’t!” Vash snapped back and winced when it sent a throb of pain through his head, “Monev—that Gung-Ho Gun that was chasing me. He…he had them…”

“Wait, the Gung-Ho Guns were in December!?” Meryl sounded frightened.

“No, it was just one of them,” Vash shook his head, slumping back against the seat, “His name was Monev the Gale. He was sent to…to catch me.”

Wolfwood’s face was hard, his hands clenched into fists, “I think you’d better start talking, Needle Noggin.”

“It’d be better if you all just left me alone.” The Plant muttered.

“No way!” Millie cried, leaning around the seat to frown at Vash, “It doesn’t matter how dangerous it gets, we won’t abandon you! Or Mister Wolfwood! You’re our friend and friends help each other!”

Vash stared at her and then looked at Wolfwood. The priest was still giving the Plant that hard look. Vash sighed, realizing he’d been backed into a corner, and looked at his hands in his lap.

“All right. I’ll try. But the memories…they’re disjointed. Broken. Not all of it’s clear. But I’ll try and tell you everything. If it means your safety, I’ll tell you everything.”

-[]-[]-[]-[]-

There was a lady at the Greenhouse where we were born. A human. Her name was Rem Saverem.

Seedlings never know their parent Plant. But to us, Rem was our mother. She was kind but firm, generous, and brave. She took care of us, treated us like people instead of cattle, taught us how to speak and read and learn.

Me and…my brother.

Plants are usually born singular. My brother and I were born twins. Supposedly that made us stronger than singular Plants; one of us has power equal to four Plants. At least according to the scientists at the Facility, that’s what Rem told us. Between the two of us, we could probably create an entirely new planet.

I don’t have many memories of the Greenhouse. I don’t remember any of the other Seedlings or where it was located or what it was like. I have vague memories of white walls and being afraid. We were moved around a lot but rarely separated. When we were, I was always afraid I would never see my brother again. Rem took care of us, cared for us. She named us, even though she wasn’t supposed to, she gave us identities. She never agreed with the way Plants were treated and sometimes we heard her arguing with the workers about it.

I…I don’t know what lead to it, I don’t really remember. But at some point I guess Rem decided she’d had enough of watching my brother and I get hurt—and I know we were hurt, I remember being sore and stiff and aching a lot. So she snuck us out. It was in the middle of the day, I remember we were supposed to be somewhere for something important. But Rem took us a different way. She called it a back door. My brother and I hid in a box. I think what happened then is that she snuck us into her truck and took us away from the Greenhouse.

It’s a bit fuzzy after that. I’m not sure where we ended up or how far we were from the Greenhouse but when Rem finally let us out of the box we were at a care center, one of those sort of halfway house towns with a single plant powering it. She told some story about how she was taking her children and running from an abusive husband. They must have believed her because we were given a small apartment to stay in. And we lived there. And it was nice. It was happy.

Rem taught us math and literature, she taught us to cook, to take care of ourselves and each other, to respect life and people. She taught us a lot of things. Sometimes we went up to the observation balcony and watched the Plant together. My brother never wanted to come with us but we played together and read together. He liked to play chess but I was terrible at it, he always beat me.

But, you know, it’s like that old poem. “Nothing gold can stay” or whatever it is.

The Plant started to fail. It was inevitable, they didn’t have the best techs and it was an older place.

My brother and I wanted to help but Rem kept us away. She told us it was dangerous for us. But that didn’t stop us all from witnessing the technicians treating the Plant with a barbaric brutality in order to get it to keep working untila replacement could be shipped in. It was awful. I had never seen such violence to another living creature before.

I remember crying a lot. I remember my brother holding my hand; his grip was so tight it hurt. I remember Rem shouting. I think she was trying to stop the technicians.

Then there was an explosion.

I don’t know if it was the Plant giving out or something rupturing. Whatever it was, it ripped through the town like wet paper. My brother took me and ran. We were both running.

We ran for a long time.

My brother promised to protect me no matter what. He said he’d never let us get used like that. I should have known then what was going through his mind. But all I could think about was how Rem was dead and we were alone. Most of that time I spent crying. I cried a lot. I wanted to quit, to just stop. Rem had been the world to me and now she was gone.

Again, my brother said he’d take care of me. He’d started…collecting people. I don’t know how he found the people he did, I’m still not sure that all of them were human. But that was the start of things. Bad things. I was in no shape to notice. He’d started giving me “medicine” to help me calm down, to make me feel better.

It was the drug Chlorophyll, a substance originally specially tempered to affect the high metabolism of Plants and sedate them. He’d cut it with hallucinogens and addictive substances and hooked me on it. Himself too as far as I know. The thing is that after a while I figured out what it was he was giving me and I kept taking it anyway because it felt good and it kept away all the painful things I didn’t want to think about.

Meanwhile, my brother was building a small army. I was left alone and ignored for the most part. Occasionally he would call on me to do something, I can remember him asking and I think I complied but those are things I don’t remember and I don’t think I wish to.

It wasn’t a bad life. But it wasn’t a good one either. I knew something bad was going on but I couldn’t face it. Or wouldn’t.

Then one day, between my spells of being high and being sober, I caught him at it. I saw first hand his hatred and his malice and his cruelty. He was beating and bullying humans much the same way the techs had done to the Plant. It was sick and it was wrong and I called him on it. I told him this was not what Rem had taught us. He grew angry with me, he called me ignorant, a soft-hearted fool, and told me I didn’t understand.

We argued.

He lashed out.

I turned and ran.

After that I don’t remember. That’s where the hole is. That’s where July should be. But it’s not there. Just like the halfway house town, just like Jenora Rock, just like the city itself, there’s _nothing there_.

And I don’t think I want to remember what happened.

-o-o-o-o-

Vash was bent double over his seat by the time he’d finished speaking, shivering with the heavy weight of his memories and the gaps in them. Wolfwood, even in his shock at hearing his friend’s story, put a gentle hand out and lay it on the Plant’s back. Vash flinched but didn’t look up.

It was deathly quiet in the jeep. Meryl had pulled the vehicle over to the side of the road, trying to wrap her head around everything, so shocked by the tale that she’d had to stop driving. Millie was looking at Vash with a sad expression, her hands knotted in her lap as if she was trying very hard not to simply leap over and hug the distressed Plant.

“Vash,” Meryl said in a small voice, careful, hesitant, maybe not a little frightened, “Your brother…what’s his name?”

A thundercloud fell about Vash the Stampede. He raised his head slowly, his gaze hard on the back of the driver’s seat, fists clenched together in his lap,

“Knives. His name is Millions Knives. He’s the leader of the Gung-Ho Guns.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Right. So. Reasons this fic stopped updating.
> 
> One reason was my interest dropped. The Trigun fandom kind of dried up and it really hasn't come back. We all moved on to other things and there's nothing wrong with that. So, without any stimuli, I inevitably lost interest.
> 
> The biggest reason I stopped working on AITWWE was because exactly a month after I posted the last update, my mom died.  
> She'd been fighting a brain tumor for years and on September 27th, 2015, she finally lost that fight. It was...devastating to say the least. It still is.  
> Ever since then, my mental state has deteriorated. I'm on medication for clinical depression and a form of anxiety so severe that I often can't go out in public. I'm trying to get a Psychiatric Service Dog to help me but it's expensive and my fundraiser isn't doing well. 
> 
> So yeah, things have been hard and shitty and I turned my back on a LOT of things I loved after my mom passed. AITWWE was a vent for the emotions I didn't quite understand. Looking back on it now, I can see the haze of depression and self-loathing clinging to it. I was using Vash as an outlet.  
> But at the same time AITWWE is about a healing process. It's about coming to terms with things and facing the hurt and accepting it. And it's hard and exhausting and you hate so much of what you have to do to overcome these obstacles. But you're better for it in the end. You're stronger.  
> I think a part of me knew that. A part of me was looking for support, was looking for help, was looking to heal.
> 
> I know all that sounds corny as fuck but that's honestly how I feel.
> 
> I don't know if I'll be able to come back and write/finish this fic now. I'd like to, if only to actually finish something I started. But it is three years old and outdated, overcomplicated, and full of holes and retcons. Heh, it's a messy fic.
> 
> Thank you to everyone who read this, left comments, kudos, and bookmarked this fic. I really, truly appreciate it from the bottom of my heart. I'm sorry I left all of you hanging in such a way just when the plot was really starting to kick up. I'll post the remaining chapters that I had prewritten and see where I go from there.  
> Seriously, thank you for all the attention you gave AITWWE, you're all the best.
> 
> Lots of love, warm wishes, and luck,  
> -Sage


End file.
